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Public Opinion in Philadelphia 

1789-1801 



A DISSERTATION 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF BRYN MAWR COLLEGE 

IN PART FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

MARGARET WOODBURY 



REPRINTED FROM THE SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY. VOLUME V. 



Durham, N. C. 

The Seeman Printery 

1919 



f47 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia 

1789-1801 



A DISSERTATION 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF BRYN MAWR COLLEGE 

IN PART FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

MARGARET WOODBURY 



REPRINTED FROM THE SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY, VOLUME V. 



Durham, N. C. 

The Seeman Printery 

1919 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface 5 

CHAPTER I 

Newspapers and Editors 7 

1. The Existence of a Party Press 7 

2. The FederaHst Press 11 

3. The Republican Press 20 

4. Miscellaneous - 31 

CHAPTER H 

The Financial System 36 

1. Nature of the Criticisms 36 

2. The Funding of the Public Debt 38 

3. The Assumption of State Debts 54 

4. The Excise - 57 

5. The Bank 60 

CHAPTER HI 

Foreign Relations 64 

1. Neutrality - 64 

2. The Jay Treaty 82 

3. Troubles With France 90 

CHAPTER IV 

Political Parties 97 

1. The Origin of Parties 97 

2. Constitutional Interpretation 100 

3. Political Issues 105 

(a) The Seat of Government 106 

(b) Democratic Societies and the Whiskey Rebel- 
lion Ill 

(c) Titles 120 

(d) Election Methods and Political Campaigns 123 

Conclusion 130 

Biblioraphy 133 



PREFACE 

Since the publication of the first volume of Professor Mc- 
Master's epoch-making History of the American People, in 1883, 
the newspaper and the pamphlet have come into their own. 
They have been made the basis of many books, monographs and 
articles, the most important perhaps being Mr. Rhodes's clever 
analysis of public opinion in the United States from 1850 to 1877. 
In spite of this activity a large part of the field still remains 
unworked. A thorough analysis of the newspaper and pamphlet 
literature of the Federalist Period (1789-1801) should throw 
light upon our political and constitutional development during 
those important formative years and should also make available 
some very useful social and economic material. 

The newspapers and pamphlets of those days were un- 
doubtedly important factors in shaping public opinion. Their 
tone was always vigorous and they were either decidedly for or 
against the measures of the government. Examples of letters 
which appeared first in newspapers and later as pamphlets, and 
which exerted a great influence, were the articles of Hamilton, 
Madison, and Jay in the Federalist, and Hamilton's Camillits 
letters written in support of the Jay Treaty. Some good ex- 
amples taken from an earlier period are to be found in Dick- 
inson's Farmer's Letters and Paine's Common Sense. 

A series of local studies of this type of literature ought to 
be useful as a basis for a general history of public opinion 
which is yet to be written. In such a series, Pennsylvania de- 
serves special consideration because Philadelphia was the seat of 
the federal government and the chief center of political in- 
trigue. The names of four or five Philadelphia editors stand 
out as particularly important during the period. Philip Fre- 
neau of the National Gazette, Benjamin Franklin Bache and 
William Duane of the Aurora were the greatest of the Anti- 



Federalist editors, while John Fenno of the Gazette of the 
United States and William Cobbett of Porcupine's Gazette al- 
ways upheld the policy of the government. These were the 
newspapers which exerted the most influence and which the 
leading men of the time used as vehicles for communicating 
their views to the public. Margaret Woodbury. 

May 10, 1919. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 

CHAPTER I 

Newspapers and Editors 

/. The Existence of a Party Press 

At the close of the eighteenth century, Philadelphia had 
more newspapers than any other city in the United States. 
They were, as a rule, well edited, according to the standards 
which then prevailed, and they compared favorably with the 
best of their contemporaries in New York, Boston, Baltimore 
and London. As purveyors of news they were far behind the 
press of a later date, but they were probably more influential in 
the field of politics. Even when the editors were known to be 
political hacks and bound by ties of gratitude to support their 
party programme, they were important factors in shaping pub- 
lic opinion. 

The newspapers of this early period were much smaller 
than those of the present day, the average size being about 
four pages of seventeen by twenty-one inches. There was little 
or no system in the arrangement of the news. Usually the first 
and last pages were given up to advertisements, such as notices 
of the sale of real estate and merchandise ; departure and ar- 
rival of vessels ; notices of runaway slaves ; schedules of stage 
coaches ; announcements of various educational institutions and 
of the publication of books and pamphlets. The second and 
third pages were usually devoted to communications from for- 
eign sources and to the activities of Congress, together with 
comments of the editor upon questions of the hour and con- 
tributions from the subscribers. There was nothing correspond- 
ing to our present day editorial page. 

So far as national issues were concerned, there was no dis- 
tinctly partisan press in Philadelphia until 1791. In the issue of 
the Aurora for October 23, 1790, the editor comments as fol- 
lows on the scarcity of news : "As to domestic politics, no party 
disputes to raise the printer's drooping spirits ; not a legisla- 



8 Smith College Studies in History 

ture sitting to furnish a few columns of debates, not even so 
much as a piece of private abuse to grace a paper — Zounds, 
people now have no spirit in them. . . . Now not even an ac- 
cident, not a duel, not a suicide, not a fire, not a murder, not 
so much as a single theft worthy of notice. O ! tempora, O ! 
mores." 

It is interesting to contrast this article with one which ap- 
peared in the Gazette of the United States less than two years 
later. 1 A correspondent relates a conversation which he had 
with a friend who had traveled extensively in Europe and who 
made the following observations on the bitter factions now 
existing in this country, lamenting the way in which the news- 
papers took part in the quarrels : "Factions are almost harm- 
less in England — and as our language is the same and our form 
of government nearly similar, we are apt to conclude that fac- 
tions will be harmless also in this country. A great many per- 
sons seem to like the bustle of wrangling parties, and the Prin- 
ters think their Gazettes insipid and in danger of losing cus- 
tom, if they refuse to mix a portion of gall with their ink. 
Accordingly, we see the government bespattered and the heads 
of departments and members of Congress blackened ; and all 
the arts of insinuation and deception put in practice to make 
the people as angry as the writers seem to be. 

"We are told that the measures of government have done 
but little good, and that little was not intended — that, however, 
they have done infinite mischief which zvas intended and is a 
part of a plan of iniquity contrived by those who administer 
the ofifices of the government. This evil, they tell us, is still 
spreading and will be fatal to the property rights and liberty 
of the many, in order by their plunder to aggrandize the few. 
That all these consequences are the more to be dreaded and are 
the more certain, as the country is too extensive to be subject 
to one free government, and the constitution has not made a 

proper definition and a due separation of its powers 

Inflammatory addresses to the passions of men have a tendency 

'June 6, 1792. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 9 

to create disturbances and convulsions in all countries — but they 
are pecviliarly alarming in our country from the nature of our 
government and the temper of our citizens. . . Our gov- 
ernment is too new and too feeble, and its powers too much 
divided with the state governments to bear the convulsion of 
vindictive factions." 

The following quotation from a pamphlet of 1794 leaves no 
doubt of the existence of a party press at that time : "I will 
examine a little further the uses that are made by the faction 
in promoting their plan through the instrumentality of news- 
papers and pamphlets. This art is not original ; it has been 
successfully employed by all the corrupt courts of Europe. I 
have already mentioned that a new courtly Gazette started up 
at the commencement of the government. This and others in 
several principal towns have been industriously employed in 
proclaiming the praises of the fiscal administration and ascrib- 
ing all the prosperity the country has experienced from the en- 
joyment of peace, increased population, industry, and a good 
government to the revenue system and through that system to 
the Secretary who originated and the speculating members who 
support it. . . . 

"The courtly Gazette and others of the same stamp, sup- 
ported by the speculators and anonymous pamphlets, were not 
only employed in publishing eulogies on the secretary and the 
fiscal measures but also in endeavoring to divert public confi- 
dence from all those who opposed or censured them. Hence 
members who disliked the measures were induced to support 
them from an apprehension that the opposition did not arise 
from true patriotism but from an anti-federal enmity to the 
government itself. This impression though its efifect will be 
but temporary, has been sufficiently lasting to support the min- 
isterial influence in the House in the second Congress and to 
render it formidable in the present. 

"The artful cry of the danger of anti-federalism is gradu- 
ally ceasing to have its effect. The more the people examine, 
the more they are convinced that no body of anti-federalists 



10 Smith College Studies in History 

exists in the United States and that no design for overturning 
the government has been entertained since the commencement 
of its operation, . . . The monarchical party are the only 
anti-federaHsts in the United States and by them only the Fed- 
eral-Republican principles of government are in danger of be- 
ing overturned." 1 

The following extracts from the letters of Washington and 
Adams constitute a reluctant tribute to the influence of the Re- 
publican press. "The publications in Freneau's and Bache's pa- 
pers are outrages on common decency and they progress in that 
style, in proportion as their pieces are treated with contempt and 
are passed by in silence, by those at whom they are aimed. The 
tendency of them, however, is too obvious to be mistaken by men 
of cool and dispassionate minds and in my opinion, ought to 
alarm them ; because it is difficult to prescribe bounds to the 
effect. "2 "Our anti-federal scribblers are so fond of rotation, that 
they seem disposed to remove their abuse from me to the Presi- 
dent. Bache's paper, which is nearly as bad as Freneau's, begins 
to join in concert with it to maul the President for his drawing- 
rooms, levees, declining to accept of invitations to dinners and 
tea parties, his birthday odes, visits, compliments, etc. I may be 
expected to be an advocate for a rotation of objects of abuse and 
for equality in this particular. I have held the office of libellee- 
general long enough. The burden of it ought to be participated 
and equalized according to modern republican principles." ^ "The 
causes of my retirement are to be found in the writings of Fre- 
neau, Markoe, Ned Church, Andrew Brown, Paine, Callender, 
Hamilton, Cobbett and John Ward Fenno and many others, but 
more especially in the circular letters of members of Congress 
from the southern and middle states. Without a complete collec- 
tion of all these libels, no faithful history of the last twenty years 



^ "A citizen," A Review of the Revenue System, Letter XIII. Phila- 
delphia, 1794. 

^ Washington to Henry Lee, July 21, 1793, Washington's Writings, 
vol. XII, pp. 310-311. 

^ Adams to Mrs. Adams, January 2, 1794, Adams's Works, vol. I, pp. 
460-461. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 11 

can ever be written nor any adequate account given of the causes 
of my retirement from public life."'* 

Adams had a theory that the hostility of the Aurora to him was 
largely due to the posthumous influence of Franklin. The follow- 
ing letter refers to the controversy between Adams and Franklin 
at the time of the peace negotiation in 1782. "Dr. Franklin's be- 
havior had been so excessively complaisant to the French ministry 
and in my opinion had so endangered the essential interests of 
our country, that I had been frequently obliged to differ from him 
and sometimes to withstand him to his face ; so that I knew he 
had conceived an irreconcilable hatred of me and that he had 
propagated and would continue to propagate prejudices, if noth- 
ing worse, against me in America from one end of it to the other. 
Look into Benjamin Franklin Bache's Aurora and Duane's 
Aurora for twenty years and see whether my expectations have 
not been verified."^ 

2. The Federalist Press 

Until the establishment of Porcupine's Gazette by Cobbett in 
1797, the Gazette of the United States was the leading Federalist 
organ. Very little is known about the life of John Fenno, the 
founder of the Gazette. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 
August 12, 1751. He was well educated and for several years 
was a teacher in the Old South Writing School. The Gazette 
was started in New York in 1789, and was transferred to Phil- 
adelphia in October, 1790, when the seat of the government was 
removed to that city. It was published on Wednesdays and Sat- 
urdays at 69 Market Street, and the subscription price was three 
dollars a year. Fenno died in Philadelphia of yellow fever, Sep- 
tember 14, 1798; and the paper was then published by his nine- 
teen-year old son, John Ward Fenno, until May, 1800, when it 
was taken over by the owner, Caleb P. Wayne. ^ 



■* Adams to Skelton Jones, March 11, 1809, Adams's Works, vol. IX, 
p. 612. 

^ Adams to Dr. Benjamin Rush, April 12, 1809, Adams's Works, vol. 
IX, p. 619. 

°J. T. Scharff and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1884, 
vol. Ill, pp. 1968-1969. 



12 Smith College Studies in History 

The Fennos were zealous admirers of Hamilton, and always 
supported his political views as well as his financial and foreign 
policies. In fact, their paper came to be regarded as Hamilton's 
official organ, and the charge was freely made that it received a 
subsidy from the treasury department. 

The aristocratic tone of the Gazette was especially obnoxious 
to Jefferson and Madison ; and, as we shall see later, it was 
largely through their efforts that Philip Freneau was induced to 
establish the National Gazette as a counterbalancing influence. 
In Jefferson's correspondence we find frequent references to 
Fenno and his paper. A few copies of Paine's Rights of Man, 
the famous answer to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolu- 
tion, arrived in Philadelphia about the beginning of May, 1791. 
On the 8th of May, Jefferson wrote to Washington as follows: 
"Paine's answer to Burke's pamphlet begins to produce some 
squibs in our public papers. In Fenno's paper they are Burkites, 
in the others Painites."'^ In a letter to William Short, written 
July 28, 1791, Jefferson also says: "Paine's pamphlet has been 
published and read with general applause here. It was attacked 
by a writer under the name of Publicola, and defended by a host 
of republican volunteers. None of the defenders are known. I 
have desired Mr. Remsen to make up a complete collection of 
these pieces from Bache's papers, the tory-paper of Fenno rarely 
admitting anything which defends the present form of govern- 
ment in opposition to his desire of subverting it to make way 
for a king, lords and commons."^ Jefferson's disapproval of 
Fenno was likewise expressed in a letter to Thomas Mann Ran- 
dolph : "I inclose you Bache's as well as Fenno's papers. You 
will have perceived that the latter is a paper of pure Toryism, 
disseminating the doctrines of monarchy, aristocracy and the 
exclusion of the influence of the people."^ 

Fenno's Gazette and Porcupine's Gazette both supported 



'Jefiferson to Washington, May 8, 1791, Jefferson's Writings, vol. V, 
p. 328. 

'Itjid., p. 361. 

" May 15, 1791, Ibid., p. ZZ6. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 13 

Hamilton in his feud with Adams during the settlement of the 
troubles with France. Writing in defence of his peace policy, 
Adams says : "A great clamor was raised among the members 
of the House of Representatives, and out of doors, and an abund- 
ance of squibs, scoffs and sarcasm, in what were then called the 
federal newspapers, particularly Cobbett's Porcupine and John 
Ward Fenno's United States Gazette.^^ 

Porcupine's Gazette first appeared March 4, 1797. Its editor 
was William Cobbett who always signed himself "Peter Porcu- 
pine." On September 6, 1799, the paper was changed from a 
daily to a weekly and continued at Bustleton, Pennsylvania, be- 
cause of the yellow fever in Philadelphia. The Country Porcu- 
pine was a tri-weekly mailing edition of Porcupine's Gazette, 
which contained all the news matter but omitted the advertise- 
ments in order to save postage. In a communication to the public, 
soon after its establishment, the editor says : "I wish my paper to 
be the rallying point for the friends of government." He went on 
to say that the subscribers already numbered 1,000 and that some 
hundreds of names had not yet reached the publisher, and that 
the paper had more subscribers at Baltimore, New York, and 
other towns of note, than any other two papers published in 
Philadelphia. 

Cobbett's chief object in conducting the paper apparently was 
to carry on a propaganda in favor of Great Britain. Incidentally 
he supported the domestic programme of the federal government, 
or at least that part of it with which Hamilton was most closely 
associated. As the influence of the Gazette of the United States 
declined, after the death of John Fenno, September 14, 1798, 
Porcupine's Gazette became for a time the leading Federalist 
paper in Philadelphia. The pacific attitude of President Adams 
toward France, however, aroused the hostility of Cobbett ; and 
accordingly Noah Webster's Nezv York Minerva became the 
official organ of the administration. 

Cobbett's life has already been fully treated by Lewis T. 



' Adams's Works, vol. IX, p. 248. See also p. 612. 



14 Smith College Studies in History 

Melville ;ii consequently the chief events of his career may be 
passed over hastily in order that more space may be devoted to 
his controversy with Dr. Benjamin Rush, all the material avail- 
able for that episode not having been used by Mr. Melville. 

William Cobbett was born March 9, 1763, at Farnham, Sur- 
rey, England. His father was a small farmer who taught his 
son the rudimentary education that he himself possessed. Cob- 
bett worked upon his father's farm until he was twenty years 
old, when he went to London and secured a position as clerk in 
an attorney's office. He found the confinement very irksome, 
however, and left this position, going to Chatham and enlisting 
in the 54th Regiment of Infantry, which was then serving in 
Nova Scotia. He devoted much of his time while in the army to 
self -improvement, and took up the study of English grammar 
for the first time. In December, 1791, he received an honorable 
discharge from the army, the purpose of his retirement being to 
bring certain of his officers to court-martial because of their mis- 
conduct in office. The War Office put every obstacle in the way 
of the court-martial and the decision rendered was that his 
charges were unfounded. 

After his marriage with Anne Reid, February 5, 1792, Cob- 
bett went to France. The gathering war clouds making it neces- 
sary for him to leave, he came to America in the autumn of 
1792, and settled in Philadelphia. He soon became the most in- 
fluential political pamphleteer in America. Between 1794 and 
1800 he published twenty pamphlets, in most of which he sup- 
ported the Federalist party, denounced France, and advocated an 
alliance with Great Britain. On March 5, 1797, he issued the 
first number of P or cu pine's Gazette, founded as he said, "with 
the intention of annihilating, if possible, the intriguing, wicked 
and indefatigable faction which- the French had formed in this 
country." In the autumn of 1797 he was sued for libel by Dr. 
Rush and the decision was rendered in December of 1799 in 
favor of the plaintiff. The judgment of $5,000, together with 



" L. T. Melville, The Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England 
and America. Two vols., London, 1913. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 15 

$3,000 damages, ruined Cobbett financially, and he returned to 
England in June, 1800. In London he became a book-seller and 
journalist. His Weekly Political Register, established in Janu- 
ary, 1802, he continued to publish until his death. He prospered, 
and purchased for himself a country estate where he spent much 
of his time. 

Cobbett was always the foe of corruption and the advocate of 
a more liberal constitution. Such views were obnoxious to the 
British government and he was frequently prosecuted for libel. 
In 1816, he established his Twopenny Trash, a newspaper which 
advocated reform and had a wide circulation among the working 
classes. The powerful influence which this paper had among 
the poor increased the hostility of the government towards Cob- 
bett. Fearing imprisonment, he decided to come back to America. 
He spent two years in this country, 1817-1819, but took no 
active part in politics. On returning to England he continued 
his agitation for reform. His great desire to sit in the House 
of Commons was at last realized in 1832, but he was seventy 
years old at the time and did not exercise much influence. He 
died July 18, 1835, at his country home at Farnham.i^ 

The origin of the quarrel between Dr. Benjamin Rush and 
William Cobbett is thus told by Dr. Rush himself i^^ "For many 
years after I settled in Philadelphia, I was regulated in my prac- 
tice by the system of medicine which I had learned from the 
lectures and publications of Dr. Cullen. But time, observations 
and reflections convinced me that it was imperfect and erroneous 
in many of its parts ... I read, I thought, and I observed 
upon the phenomena of diseases . . . and at length a few 
rays of light broke in upon my mind upon several diseases. . . . 
The system I adopted was not merely a speculative one. It led 
to important changes in the practice. 

"The propagation of my new opinions had an immediate 
influence upon my business. It lessened it by precluding me 



" Ibid., passim. 

"Benjamin Rush, A Memorial Containing Travels Through Life or 
Sundry Incidents in the Life of, pp. 61-74. 



16 Smith College Studies in History 

from consultations, for most of my brethren in Philadelphia 
were devoted to Dr. CuUen's system of medicine and opposed 
to the least deviation from it. It would be improper to ascribe 
my exclusion from consultations wholly to the influence of my 
new opinions. The part I took in favor of my country in the 
American Revolution had left prejudices in the minds of the 
most wealthy citizens of Philadelphia against me, for a great 
majority of them had been loyalists in principle and conduct. . . 

"Other things contributed to offend my medical brethren 
besides the novelty of my opinions and practice. I had declared 
medicine to be a science so simple that two years' study, in- 
stead of four or more, were sufficient to understand all that 
was true and practical in it. I had rejected a great number of 
medicines as useless and had limited the materia medica to fif- 
teen or twenty articles and in order to strip medicine still fur- 
ther of its imposture, I had borne a testimony against envelop- 
ing it in mystery or secrecy by Latin prescriptions and by pub- 
lishing inaugural dissertations in the Latin language in the 
medical school of Philadelphia. . . . The success which at- 
tended the remedies which it pleased God to make me the in- 
strument of introducing into general practice in the treatment 
of the fever in 1793, produced a sudden combination of all who 
had been either publicly or privately my enemies and the most 
violent and undisguised exertions to oppose and discredit those 
remedies. 

"To prevent the recurrence of the fever, I early pointed out 
its domestic origin. In this opinion I was opposed by nearly 
the whole College of Physicians, who derived it from a foreign 
country and who believed it to be a specific disease. They were 
followed by nearly all the physicians of Philadelphia. ... A 
number of cases of yellow fever occurred in the summer and 
autumn of 1794 and a few in the same season in 1795 and 
1796. . . . In the year 1797, the yellow fever became again 
epidemic. 

"Soon after the fever appeared, Dr. Griffiths published, with- 
out his name, some plain and sensible directions to the citizens 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 17 

for the treatment of the fever. This pubHcation was ascribed to 
me in Fenno's paper and a most virulent invective against me 
connected with it. It was soon afterwards followed by torrents 
of abuse in a paper conducted by one Cobbett, an English alien 
who then resided in Philadelphia. The publications in these 
two daily papers were continued for nearly six weeks against 
my practice and character, particularly against my political prin- 
ciples which were those of the federal republic of our country. 
. All these different attacks upon my character and prac- 
tice were well received by many of my fellow citizens. Some 
of them considered them as a just punishment for my political 
principles, while many more acquiesced in them as the probable 
means of destroying the influence of a man who had aimed to 
destroy the credit of their city, by ascribing to it a power of 
generating yellow fever. 

"Their design proved successful. They lessened my busi- 
ness and they abstracted so much of the confidence of my pa- 
tients as to render my practice extremely difficult and disagree- 
able among them. To put a stop to their injurious effects upon 
my business and the lives of my patients, I commenced civil 
action against both the printers." 

The specific accusations made by Dr. Rush against Cobbett 
are set forth in the charge which Judge Shippen delivered to 
the jury when he dismissed it to deliberate upon the case. They 
are as follows :^^ "That he (the defendant) repeatedly calls the 
plaintiff a quack, an empyric, charges him with intemperate 
bleeding, injudiciously administering Mercury in large doses 
in the yellow-fever; puffing himself off, writing letters and an- 
swering them himself, stiling him the Samson in Medicine; 
charging him with murdering his patients and slaying his thou- 
sands and tens of thousands." 

In his remarks to the jury it is very evident that the sympa- 
thies of the Judge were with the plaintiff : "The counts laid in 



^* A Report of an action for a Libel brought by Dr. Benjamin Rush 
against William Cobbett, in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Decem- 
ber term, 1799, for certain defamatory publications in a newspaper en- 
titled Porcupine's Gazette, Philadelphia, 1800. 



18 Smith College Studies in History 

the declaration," he says, "are full proved by the publications 
which are certainly libellous. In what manner do the defend- 
ant's counsel repel these proofs? Not by justifying the truth 
of the matters charged against Dr. Rush, which on the contrary 
they have repeatedly acknowledged to be false, but by analyzing 
the several allegations in the newspapers and from thence draw- 
ing a conclusion that no intentional personal malice appears, 
which they say is the essence of the offence. If the defendant 
has done that to your satisfaction you will acquit him; but as 
this is chiefly founded on the allegation that the attack was 
meant to be made on Dr. Rush's System and not upon the man, 
it unfortunately appears that not the least attempt is made to 
combat the Doctor's arguments with regard to the System itself, 
but the attack is made merely by gross scurrilous abuse of the 
Doctor himself : added to this, one of the witnesses proves a 
declaration made by the defendant, that if Dr. Rush had not 
been the Man he should never have meddled with the System. 
"Another ground of defence is of a more serious nature, as 

it leads to an important question on our constitution — it is said 
that the subject of dispute between the plaintiff and defendant 
was a matter of public concern, as it related to the health and 
lives of our fellow-citizens and that by the words of our con- 
stitution, every man has a right to discuss such subjects in 
print. The liberty of the press, gentlemen, is a valuable right 
in every free country, and ought never to be unduly restrained, 
but when it is perverted to the purposes of private slander, it 
then becomes a most destructive engine in the hands of un- 
principled men. . . 

"Every one must know that offences of this kind have for 
some time past too much abounded in our city ; it seems high 
time to restrain them — that task is with you, gentlemen. To 
suppress so great an evil, it will not only be proper to give com- 
pensatory, but exemplary damages ; thus stopping the growing 
progress of this daring crime — at the same time, the damages 
should not be so enormous as absolutely to ruin the offender." 

The declaration of the plaintiff contained certain extracts 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 19 

from Cobbett's paper, Porcupine's Gazette, which were consid- 
ered hbellous and were the basis of the accusations. One article 
was entitled "Medical Puffing" i^^ 

" 'The times are ominous indeed, 

When quack to quack cries purge and bleed.' 

"Those who are in the habit of looking over the Gazettes 
which come in from the different parts of the country, must have 
observed, and with no small degree of indignation, the arts that 
our remorseless Bleeder is making use of to puff off his preposter- 
ous practice. He has, unfortunately, his partisans in almost every 
quarter of the country. To these he writes letters, and in re- 
turn gets letters from them ; he extols their practice and they 
extol his ; and there is scarcely a page of any newspaper that 
I see which has the good fortune to escape the poison of their 
prescriptions — Blood, blood ! still they cry more blood ! . . . 
Dr. Rush in that emphatic style which is peculiar to himself 
calls Mercury 'the Samson of medicine.' In his hands and in 
those of his partisans it may indeed be justly compared to Sam- 
son ; for, I verily believe they have slain more Americans with 
it than ever Samson slew of the Philistines. The Israelite 
slew his thousands, but the Rushites their tens of thousands." 

Another article appeared in the same paper a week later 
and was entitled "'Another Puff."i® "In Brown's paper ^'^ of 
last evening appeared another of our potent Quack's barefaced 
puffs. It was 'a letter from Dr. Rush to a correspondent in 
Newberry Port,' giving his own account of the yellow fever 
and concluding with a dragged-in compliment to a Mr. Coates. 
. . . . All this bustle of letters and address and prescrip- 
tions, in the name of Dr. Rush, is intended to make the duped 
world believe that he is the Oracle at Philadelphia and that all 
the other physicians are mere glister-pipe Dicks under him — It 
is a cheap mode of acquiring fame, which he learned from the 
crafty old hypocrite Franklin." 



"'September 19, 1797. 
" September 26, 1917. 

" The Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser. See be- 
low p. 32. 



20 Smith College Studies in History 

Still another piece of evidence produced by the plaintiff's 
counsel was a letter inserted in Cobbett's paper for October 6, 
1797. It told of a cure for the yellow fever made by a soldier's 
accidental immersion in tar. The editor comments as follows : 
"This seems an odd kind of a remedy, but I would rather Tar, 
with the addition of Feathers than venture my life against the 
lancet of Dr. Rush." 

The jury, after a deliberation of two hours, brought in a 
verdict in favor of the plaintiff. 

J. The Republican Press 

During the first session of Congress held in Philadelphia 
(December 6, 1790, to March 3, 1791), there were bitter dis- 
putes over the establishment of the national bank and the impo- 
sition of the excise. Although the opponents of these measures 
were able to exert some influence through the columns of Bache's 
General Advertiser, they soon decided that it was desired to es- 
tablish a party organ to counteract the power which Hamilton 
was exerting through Fenno's Gazette of the United States. The 
National Gazette, a semi-weekly, was therefore founded, October 
31, 1791, and placed under the editorial control of Philip Fren- 
eau. His paper was strongly anti-Federal in tone and especially 
severe in its denunciation of Hamilton's political and financial 
theories. Its publication was suspended in the summer of 1793 
because of the yellow fever epidemic and was never resumed. 

Philip Freneau^^ was born in New York, January 13, 1752, 
of Huguenot parentage. Upon the death of his father, his 
mother and her four children removed to the Freneau estate at 
Mt. Pleasant, New Jersey. Philip entered the College of New 
Jersey (Princeton), in 1767. Students and faculty were active 
in their denunciations of the aggressions of England and this en- 
vironment largely influenced his future career. It was here that 
he first exhibited that genius for verse which was to make him 



^' S. E. Forman, The Potitical Activities of Philip Freneau. (Johns 
Hopkins University Studies, vol. XX, Baltimore, 1902), passim. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 21 

famous. He graduated in the well-known class of 1771, the 
class of James Madison and Hugh Breckenridge. 

Upon leaving college, Freneau came to Philadelphia and read 
law for several months. After that he tried teaching, but he dis- 
liked the work and was a failure. In 1775, he was back in New 
York writing poems in criticism of Great Britain. The year 1775 
was an especially important one for arousing the minds of the 
people and preparing them for the break with the mother country 
which Freneau thought was the only way out of the difficulty. 
His work won for him the title of the "Poet of the Revolution." 
"The British Prison Ship," which he published in 1781 relates 
his own experiences on a British vessel, the Scorpion, where he 
was kept a prisoner for two months after having been taken 
captive from his little privateering vessel, the Aurora. Nothing 
he wrote had more influence on the American cause, as he de- 
picted most forcefully the cruelty and inhumanity of the English 
towards their prisoners. 

After the Revolution Freneau took to the sea and became 
captain of a trading vessel sailing between the United States and 
the West Indies. In April of 1789, he returned to New York 
and wrote for the Daily Advertiser. He was friendly with all 
the leading Republicans and was soon recognized in political 
circles as one of their strongest writers. 

In 1790, Thomas Jefiferson returned to America from Paris 
and became Secretary of State. When the government was moved 
to Philadelphia in 1791, there was a vacancy in Jefferson's office 
in the position of French translator. It was largely through the 
instrumentality of James Madison and Henry Lee that this po- 
sition was oflfered to Freneau.^'' The salary was $250, only one- 
half the pay of a regular clerk, and it was understood that he was 
allowed to spend the rest of the time editing a newspaper. Fren- 
eau had intended to leave New York and start a newspaper in 
New Jersey. Jefferson, Madison and other Republicans, how- 
ever, were particularly desirous that he should establish his pa- 



" Madison says that Lee made the original suggestion. Madison's 
Writings, vol. VI, p. 117, note. 



22 Smith College Studies in History 

per in Philadelphia as an offset to Hamilton's organ, the Ga- 
zette of the United States, edited by John Fenno. Madison wrote 
to Jefferson from New York, May 1, 1791, as follows: "The 
more I learn of his character, talents and principles, the more I 
should regret his burying himself in the obscurity he had chosen 
in New Jersey. It is certain that there is not to be found in the 
whole catalogue of American printers a single name that can 
approach towards a rivalship."-*' 

Freneau was delayed for sometime in New Jersey, and Jeffer- 
son concluded that he had given up his plan of coming to Phila- 
delphia. Madison wrote to Jefferson from New York, July 10, 
1791, "that Freneau is now here and has abandoned his Phila- 
delphia project. From what cause I am wholly unable to deter- 
mine ; unless those who know his talents and hate his political 
principles should have practised some artifice for the purpose."-^ 

Finally, late in July, Freneau definitely decided to accept and 
on August 16, 1791, was given the position in Jefferson's office. 
The enemies of Freneau and Jefferson made much of his accept- 
ing this appointment and tried to represent the whole proceeding 
as dishonorable. The chief aim of the National Gazette was to 
attack Hamilton and make his measures as unpopular as possible. 
Freneau was a master of irony and Fenno was no match for him. 
Hamilton, therefore, undertook to fight his own cause. He at- 
tacked Freneau in the Gazette of the United States, and made 
much of the fact that while he was receiving a salary from the 
government as a translator, he was denouncing the measures of 
the government in his newspaper.-^ A great controversy resulted 
from these charges. Hamilton said that Jefferson dictated the 
policies of Freneau's paper, and it was this episode which caused 
the outbreak of the quarrel between Hamilton and Jefferson. ^^ 
Jefferson, however, maintained a dignified silence at this time 



** Madison's Writings, vol. VI, pp. 46-47. 

" Madison's Writings, vol. VI, p. 55, n. 

"^ Similar charges might have been brought against Hamilton who 
had employed Fenno as exclusive printer for the government at a salary 
of $2,500 a year. 

'" Hamilton's Works, vol. ^, p. 28. 

Mr 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 23 

and left Hamilton and Freneau to fight it out alone. He swore 
before the President, however, that he had never attempted in 
any way to influence the policy of the paper. Freneau testified 
before the mayor of Philadelphia that he had always been in- 
dependent and influenced by no one. 

Madison, in a letter to Edmund Randolph, dated September 
13, 1792, discusses the charge made by Fenno that the establish- 
ment of the National Gazette was brought about to sap the con- 
stitution, and that it was improper for one person to be a trans- 
lating clerk in a public ofBce and at the same time an editor of a 
Gazette. "I advised the change [Philadelphia rather than New 
Jersey]" writes Madison, "because I thought his [Freneau's] 
interest w^ould be advanced by it and because as a friend, I was 
desirous that his interest should be advanced. That was my 
primary and governing motive. That, as a consequential one, I 
entertained hopes that a free paper meant for general circulation, 
and edited by a man of genius of republican principles, and a 
friend to the constitution, would be some antidote to the doctrines 
and discourses circulated in favor of Monarchy and Aristocracy 
and would be an acceptable vehicle of public information in many 
places not sufficiently supplied with it, this also is a certain 
truth."24 

The plague visited Philadelphia in the summer of 1793, and 
the National Gazette was discontinued. About this time Jeffer- 
son resigned, and Freneau was obliged to give up his clerkship. 
After leaving Philadelphia, Freneau published the Jersey Chron- 
icle at his own home at Mt. Pleasant, New Jersey. This was an 
Anti-Federal paper which soon perished. The Time-Piece, an- 
other newspaper venture of Freneau in New York, met with a 
similar fate. While Freneau spent most of his remaining years 
at Mt. Pleasant, he continued his literary activity. His poHtical 
works appeared in Bache's Aurora, the political successor of the 
National Gazette. Freneau never made a living out of his writ- 
ings. Finally, to provide for his family, he became captain of a 



Madison's Writings, vol. VI, p. 117 note. 



24 Smith College Studies in History 

merchantman and thus spent the years from 1799 until 1807, 
when he abandoned the sea never to return to it again. His 
literary activity during the war of 1812 won for him the title of 
the "Poet of the War of 1812." His career as a writer ended 
at the close of the war, and he spent the last years of his life in 
retirement in his New Jersey home. His death occurred in De- 
cember, 1832. 

The National Gazette overshadowed the other Republican 
newspapers of the time, but when it ceased publication in 1793, 
Bache's General Advertiser, known later as the Aurora General 
Advertiser, became the chief party organ. 

Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, 
was born in Philadelphia, August 12, 1769. His father, Richard 
Bache, a native of Yorkshire, England, came to America while a 
young man and entered mercantile business. He married Sarah, 
the only daughter of Benjamin Franklin, in 1767. Benjamin F. 
Bache accompanied his grandfather to Paris, when the latter rep- 
resented the Continental Congress at the French court, and re- 
ceived his education in France and at Geneva. While in Paris 
he learned the printing trade at the publishing house of Didot. 
He returned to America with his grandfather in 1785 and com- 
pleted his education in the College of Philadelphia. Bache 
founded the General Advertiser, the first number of which ap- 
peared October 1, 1790. On November 8, 1794, its title was 
changed to the Aurora General Advertiser. Bache remained the 
editor until his death, as the result of yellow fever, on September 
10, 1798. William Duane then published it for two years as the 
agent of Mrs. Bache. In 1800 Duane married Mrs. Bache and 
became the sole editor. 

The Aurora, as it was popularly called, advocated the cause 
of the French Republic and tried to arouse American sympathy 
in its favor. President Washington looked with disapproval 
upon many of the measures of the French revolutionists, and 
hence the Aurora was led into hostility to the Federal govern- 
ment and won over to the Anti-Federal party. It was considered 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 25 

as the special organ of the Democratic RepubHcans and was called 
"The Bible of the Democracy."-^ 

So strong a stand did the Aurora take against the measures of 
Washington's administration, that its violence was often directed 
against the President himself. The following article, published 
the day after President Adams's inauguration and relating to 
Washington's departure for Mt. Vernon, illustrates this point : 
" 'Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation' was the pious ejaculation of a man 
who beheld a flood of happiness rushing in upon mankind. If 
ever there was a time which would license the reiteration of this 
exclamation that time is now arrived ; for the man who is the 
source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day reduced 
to a level with his fellow citizens and is no longer possessed of 
power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there 
was a period of rejoicing this is the moment. Every heart in 
unison with the freedom and happiness of the people ought to 
beat high with exultation that the name of Washington from this 
day ceased to give a currency to political iniquity and to legalized 
corruption. A new era is now opening upon us, an era which 
promises much to the people ; for public measures must now 
stand upon their own merits and nefarious projects can no longer 
be supported by a name. It is a subject of the greatest astonish- 
ment that a single individual should have carried his designs 
against the public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its 
very existence. Such, however, are the facts ; and with these 
staring us in the face, this day ought to be a jubilee in the United 
States."^" 

William Duane was born in New York, near Lake Champlain, 
May 17, 1760. His father and mother, both natives of Ireland, 
were well educated and of good family connections. From his 
mother, a very firm and stubborn woman, he inherited the one 
trait of absolute adherence to principle and loyalty to party 



A. C. Clark, IVilliaiii Duane. p. 15. 
March 5, 1747. 



26 Smith College Studies in History 

whether right or wrong, a characteristic which governed him 
throughout his entire Hfe. His father, a land-surveyor, died in 
1765, it is said, in an attack by the Indians. 

Mrs. Duane with her son, then five years old, came to Phila- 
delphia, and after remaining there a short time moved to Bal- 
timore. In 1774 William and his mother crossed to Ireland and 
settled at Clonmel. Here he was well educated, but as his mother 
was in very comfortable circumstances no thought was given to 
providing him with a profession.-^ When not quite nineteen 
years of age, Duane fell in love with and married Catharine, the 
seventeenth child of William Corcoran. The marriage displeased 
his mother, and he was disinherited. Mrs. Duane's objections 
were entirely religious, as she was a devout Roman Catholic and 
the Corcorans were of the Established Church. ^^ The question 
of making a living for himself and his wife presented itself to 
William. Having no profession or business training, he learned 
the printing trade. After working at this for three or four years 
in Clonmel, he took his wife and son to London. 

In 1787 he went out to Calcutta and established a newspaper 
called The World. The venture was successful, and Duane was 
about to send for his family when an article in his paper provoked 
the wrath of the officials of the East India Company. He was 
imprisoned, his property was confiscated, and he was ultimately 
sent back to England. Although he petitioned Parliament for 
redress, he soon found that the East India Company was too 
rich and powerful to be successfully attacked. For the next 
few years he was parliamentary reporter for the General Adver- 
tiser, a paper that was later merged with the London Timesr^ 

Duane and his family sailed from London, May 16, 1796, and 
arrived in New York on the 4th of July. Shortly afterward, he 
came to Philadelphia and assisted Benjamin F. Bache in the pub- 
lication of the Aurora. On July 13, 1798 Mrs. Duane died of the 
yellow fever, and on September 10, Bache succumbed to the same 



Qark, William Duane, p. 8. 
'Ibid., p. 9. 
' Ibid., p. 13. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 27 

disease. The Aurora was continued for a while under the joint 
editorship of Duane and Mrs. Bache until, on June 28, 1800, 
they were married and Duane became sole editor. ^^ 

Duane was an even more bitter partisan than Bache. His 
official biographer tells us that he was always ready for a quar- 
rel and that it was of no consequence to him whether the issue 
was "national, state, or municipal, whether political, religious, or 
anything else in the dictionary's descriptives."^^ He was almost 
constantly involved in libel suits. There can, however, be no 
doubt about the strength of his political influence. His paper was 
one of the chief factors in discrediting the administration of 
Adams and bringing about the election of Jefferson in 1800. 
Adams's own opinion of Duane is well expressed in the follow- 
ing extract from a letter written to Timothy Pickering, August 
1, 1799: "Is there anything evil in the regions of actuality or 
possibility that the Aurora has not suggested of me? The match- 
less effrontery of this Duane merits the execution of the Alien 
Law. I am very willing to try its strength upon him."^^ 

Washington of course escaped direct attack as he had retired 
from public life before Duane's American career began. He was, 
however, very much disturbed by the violent attacks made upon 
the men and measures of the Federalist party. In a letter to 
James McHenry of August 11, 1799, he speaks of Duane in 
these words : "There can be no medium between the reward and 
the punishment of such an Editor who shall publish such things 
as Duane has been doing for sometime past. On what ground 
then does he pretend to stand in his exhibition of the charges or 
the insinuations which he has handed to the Public? Can hardi- 
hood itself be so great as to stigmatize characters in the Public 
Gazettes for the most heinous offences and when prosecuted 
pledge itself to support the allegation, unless there was some- 
thing to build on ? It will have an unhappy efifect on the public 
mind if it be not so."^^ 



""Ibid., 15. 

''Ibid., 16. 

^ Adams's Works, vol. IX, p. 5. 

^Washington's Writings, vol. IV, pp. 194-195. 



28 Smith College Studies in History 

In the diary of John Quincy Adams (1795-1848), the follow- 
ing entry is written of Duane : "As merely the editor of a news- 
paper, character is not necessary to support opposition. To prove 
venal and profligate would only show him fit for the trade which 
he pursues of disseminating slander. He has talents, long and 
uninterrupted experience in public affairs, much knowledge 
crammed without order or method into his head and indefatigible, 
unremitting industry. His real faculty and power as a slanderer 
consists in mixing truth with falsehood in such proportions that 
with the ignorant, the malicious and the interested, the compound 
is so like the truth 'twill serve the turn as well. As a partisan, 
he can be useful only to those whose cause depends upon the 
propagation of falsehood. For support of truth or correct prin- 
ciple he is impotent." 

Jefferson, writing from Monticello to Mr. Wirt, speaks of 
the services rendered his party by the Aurora as follows : "The 
paper has unquestionably rendered incalculable services to repub- 
licanism through all its struggles with the federalists and has 
been the rallying point for the orthodoxy of the whole Union. 
It was our comfort in the gloomiest days and is still performing 
the office of a watchful sentinel. We should be ungrateful to 
desert him and unfaithful to our own interests to lose him."^^ 

Mr. Madison, writing in 1811, characterizes him as follows: 
"I have always regarded Duane and still regard him as a sin- 
cere friend of liberty and as ready to make every sacrifice to its 
cause but that of his passions. Of these he appears to be com- 
pletely a slave. "^^ 

The Aurora gradually lost its leadership as the great organ of 
Republicanism and declined in political importance. Duane laid 
down the editorial pen in 1822. He died November 24, 1835, at 
the age of seventy-six, and was buried in North Laurel Hill 
Cemetery, Philadelphia. 

The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser was the first 
daily paper published in the United States. It was first issued 



March 30, 1811. Jefferson's Writings, vol. IX, p. 316-317. 
Madison's Writings, vol. VIII, p. 151. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 29 

from the press October 28, 1771, and its editor was John Dun- 
lap. It was printed on Market street on Monday of each week.'^*^ 
From September 16, 1777, to June 30, 1778, while the British 
were in possession of Philadelphia, it was pubUshed at Lan- 
caster, Pennsylvania. Until 1793, Dunlap was the principal edi- 
tor, after that date David Claypoole was associated with him, 
and in 1796 the editorship was handed over to Claypoole. On 
October 1, 1800, Claypoole sold out to Zachariah Poulson, who 
continued the paper as Poulson s Daily Advertiser until, in De- 
cember, 1839, it was united with the Philadelphia North Ameri- 
can. The Packet was strongly Republican in its politics, al- 
though its influence was not as great as Freneau's Gazette or 
Bache's Aurora. 

John Dunlap was born in the north of Ireland in 1747. Early 
in life he moved to America and settled in Philadelphia, where he 
became associated in the printing trade with his uncle, William 
Dunlap. He purchased his uncle's interest in the business in 
1768, founded the Packet in 1771, and was official printer of the 
Journals of Congress from 1778 to 1783. He retired from busi- 
ness in 1795 and died in Philadelphia, November 27, 1812.-'''' 

David Chambers Claypoole was born in Philadelphia June 
14, 1757. His ancestry may be traced back to an old English 
family of Claypooles situated in Norborough, Northamptonshire. 
The history of the Claypoole family in America begins with 
James Claypoole who immigrated to this country in 1683. David 
C. Claypoole served during the American Revolution as an in- 
fantry officer, and he also took part in the expedition sent in 
1794 to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. It was in December 
of 1793 that he first became associated with John Dunlap in the 
publication of the American Daily Advertiser, successor to the 
Packet, and in January, 1796, he became the sole editor. Wash- 
ington's Farewell Address first appeared in Claypoole's paper, 
and the original manuscript was presented to him by the Presi- 



^ It did not become a daily until September 21, 1784. 
" Isaiah Thomas, History of Printing in America, Albany, 1874, vol. 
I, pp. 252-253, 258-259. 



30 Smith College Studies in History 

dent. On October 1, 1800, Claypoole sold his paper to Zachariah 
Poulson for $10,000. He died March 9, 1849, and was buried in 
St. Stephen's Church, Philadelphia.^^ 

Zachariah Poulson, Jr., was born in Philadelphia, September 
5, 1761. He was the son of Zachariah Poulson, a native of 
Denmark, who came to Philadelphia in 1749 and went into busi- 
ness as a book-binder and book-seller. Zachariah, Jr., served an 
apprenticeship with Joseph Crinkshank, an eminent printer of 
Philadelphia, and for many years was printer for the State Sen- 
ate. On October 1, 1800, he purchased Claypoole's American 
Daily Advertiser. Poulson died July 31, 1844.^^ 

The Independent Gazetteer or Chronicle of Freedom was 
founded in April, 1782, as a weekly. It became a daily in Oc- 
tober, 1786. Its editor was Eleazer Oswald. Upon his death, 
1795, the paper was taken over by Joseph Gales, and in Sep- 
tember, 1796, it became known as Gale's Independent Gazetteer, 
published semi-weekly. The Gazetteer was pro-French in its 
sympathies and opposed to the measures of the Federal govern- 
ment. 

Eleazer Oswald was born in England in 1755, and moved to 
America in 1770. He entered the American army at the be- 
ginning of the Revolution and served with distinction as a col- 
onel. In 1778, he resigned his commission and came to Phila- 
delphia, and in April, 1782, began the publication of the Inde- 
pendent Gazetteer or Chronicle of Freedom. He was a very 
strong opponent of Hamilton, and on one occasion challenged him 
to a duel, but mutual friends managed to patch up the affair. 
In 1792, he went to France and joined the Republican army as a 
colonel of artillery. He was sent to Ireland by the French gov- 
ernment on a secret errand to investigate conditions relative to a 
proposed French invasion. Later he returned to the United 
States and died soon after of yellow fever, in New York, Sep- 
tember 30, 1795.^0 



^ Claypoole Genealogy, pp. 82-87. 

'^ Thomas, History of Printing in America, vol. II, pp. 140-141. 

** Appleton, Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. IV, p. 603. J. 
B. McMaster and F. D. Stone, Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 
Philadelphia, 1888, p. 7. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 31 

Joseph Gales was one of the small group of English radicals 
who were compelled to go into exile because of their sympathies 
with the French Revolution. He was born near Sheffield in 1760. 
He became a printer and bookseller in that city and also published 
the Register. His liberal principles, as expressed in his paper, 
aroused the hostility of the British government, and fearing ar- 
rest he sold his paper and came to Philadelphia in the spring of 
1793. He obtained employment as a printer on the American 
Daily Advertiser, published by David C. Claypoole. In 1795, 
he became owner of the Independent Gazetteer and conducted it 
until 1799. He then sold out to Samuel Harrison Smith, moved 
to North Carolina and established the Raleigh Register. When 
quite old he relinquished this paper to one of his sons and went 
to Washington, where he became much interested in African 
colonization. He was an active member of the American Col- 
onization Society almost to his death. He died in Raleigh, 
August 24, 1841. 

4. Miscellaneous 

The Pennsylvania Gazette was first issued December 24, 1728, 
by Samuel Keimer. Benjamin Franklin was employed by 
Keimer for a short time, but through financial difficulties, Keimer 
was forced to dispose of the paper, and it was sold to Franklin 
and Hugh Meredith. This connection was broken in 1732, and 
Franklin became sole editor. Early in 1748 he took as his part- 
ner, a Scotchman, David Hall, to whom he sold his interests in 
1765. In 1766, William Sellers became associated with Hall 
and their partnership lasted until 1805. During the occupation 
of Philadelphia by the British and for some months afterwards 
the publication was suspended, but was resumed January 5, 1779, 
and conducted regularly after that. This paper later became the 
Saturday Evening Post, the first issue of which was published 
August 4, 1821.-'i 

The first number of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Ad- 



" Scharff and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, vol. Ill, pp. 1962- 
1963. 



32 Smith College Studies in History 

vertiscr appeared December 2, 1742. The editor was William 
Bradford, the nephew of Andrew Bradford, who published the 
American Weekly Mercury, the first newspaper printed in Phila- 
delphia. In 1766, his son, Thomas, became his partner. During 
the British occupation of Philadelphia, the publication of the 
paper was suspended, but it was resumed again in December 
of 1778. The father and son continued to publish the paper 
until the former died, September 25, 1791. The title was changed 
in 1797 to the True American, and the paper continued to be 
edited by Thomas Bradford. The subscription price was six 
dollars per annum.^- 

William Bradford was born in New York in 1719. He was 
adopted and educated by his uncle, Andrew Bradford, with 
whom he learned the printing trade and whose partner he be- 
came in December, 1739. This relationship, however, lasted only 
a year. In December, 1742, he began to publish the Poinsylvania 
Journal and Weekly Advertiser, a paper which was devoted to 
the American cause from the beginning of the difficulties 
with Great Britain in 1765. He served with distinction in the 
American Revolution, becoming the colonel of his regiment. Af- 
ter the British evacuated Philadelphia, he retired from the army, 
broken in health and fortune. The fact that he had a share 
in securing the independence of his country afforded him much 
comfort in his later years, and he frequently remarked to his 
children, "Though I bequeath you no estate, I leave you in the 
enjoyment of liberty." He died September 25, 1791, and was 
buried in Philadelphia."*-^ 

His son Thomas was born in Philadelphia May 4, 1745. He 
attended the College of Philadelphia for several years. In 1762, 
his father gave him a place in his printing office and in 1766 re- 
ceived him as a partner in the business. He was an ardent pa- 
triot and served throughout the Revolution. After the war he 
resumed the printing business with his father. He died in Phila- 
delphia, May 7, 1838.-'^ 



Ibid., pp. 1964-1965. 
' Bradford Genealogy, pp. 5-7. 
'Ibid. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 33 

The first number of the Federal Gazette was issued October 1, 
1788, by Andrew Brown. In January, 1794, the title was changed 
to the Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser. 
Upon the death of Brown in 1797, his son, Andrew Brown, took 
charge of the paper and Samuel Relf was associated with him 
as partner. Samuel Relf bought Brown's interest in September, 
1801, and continued to publish the Gazette until his death in 1823. 

Andrew Brown was a native of Ireland, born in 1744. He 
received his education at Trinity College, Dublin, and came to 
America in 1773 as an officer in the British army. He soon left 
the service, however, and settled in Massachusetts. He fought 
on the American side during the Revolution. At the conclusion of 
the war he established a seminary for young ladies at Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania, but his irritable temper made him unsuitable for 
this occupation, and he gave it up. In October, 1788, he bought 
and published the Federal Gazette at Philadelphia. This paper 
leaned toward the Federalist party, and it was the first journal 
to publish regular reports of the debates in Congress. Brown 
continued to publish his paper during the yellow- fever epidemic 
of 1793, one of the few editors to do this. His death was caused 
by injuries received while trying to save his wife and children 
from a fire which destroyed his printing establishment on the 
night of January 27, 1797. -He died February 4, 1797. His 
son, Andrew, born in Ireland in 1774, continued to publish the 
paper until 1802. His partner was Samuel Relf, until, in 1802, 
Relf bought out his partner's interest and the paper was pub- 
lished as Rclfs Gazette. In the troubles with England which cul- 
minated in the War of 1812, his sympathies were so Anglophile 
that he became very unpopular. He went to England and died 
there, December 7, 1847.^^ 

Samuel Relf was born in Virginia, March 22, 1776, and died 
there February 4, 1823. His mother brought him to Philadel- 
phia when a child. He became associated with Andrew Brown as 
editor of the Philadelphia Gazette in 1799. In 1802 he became 
sole editor, and the paper was changed to Rclfs Gazette.*^' 

'^Scharff and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, vol. III. p. 1977. 
** Frederic Hudson, History of Journalism. New York, 1873, p. 78. 



34 Smith College Studies in History 

The Pennsylvania Mercury and Universal Advertiser was a 
weekly, established August 20, 1784. Its editor during the 
greater part of its existence, which lasted until 1791, was Daniel 
Humphreys. 

Daniel Humphreys was the son of Joshua Humphreys. He 
served his time as an apprentice to William Bradford. Begin- 
ning in 1775, Daniel was the partner of Enoch Story, but this 
lasted only a few months as the printing house and its materials 
were destroyed by fire. From June, 1783, to July, 1784, he was a 
partner of Eleazer Oswald in the publication of his Independent 
Gazetteer. He had a printing house in Philadelphia until 1811. 
He died June 12, 1812.^' 

The New World was a small paper which appeared in Phila- 
delphia in 1795. Its editor was Samuel Harrison Smith, and it 
was issued at first twice a day, morning and evening, but was 
soon changed to a daily.-*^ The price was eight dollars a year, 
and the place of publication 118 Chestnut Street. This paper 
claimed to be non-partisan. In his foreword to the public the edi- 
tor says that "political discussion will be encouraged and not re- 
pressed so far as it is connected with principles and the general 
good. But it will always be rejected when its object is personal 
resentment or party malevolence." The paper was discontinued 
after a few months. ^^ 

Carey's Daily Advertiser was published by James Carey and 
John Markland at 91 South Front Street. The price was six 
dollars a year. The paper professed political impartiality, and 
the prospectus announced that "the Daily Advertiser will be open 
for candid and liberal discussion on both sides of every political 
question which may interest the public mind. It will likewise 
contain such extracts from party papers and pamphlets on both 
sides as may serve to develop the plans and conduct of each. 
The design of this is to lessen the political zeal. To soften that 



" Thomas, History of Printing, vol. I, 267-268. 
« October 25, 1796. 

^' Title page of The New World, file in the Ridgeway Branch of the 
Philadelphia Library Company. 



Public Opinion in Philajdelphia, 1789-1801 35 

asperity which a difference in political opinion produces in the 
heart, should be the study of every man, whatever his sentiments 
or whatever his situation. "^"^ Carey came to this country in 
1796, having failed in the publication of the Volunteer's Journal 
of Dublin, a paper he had had charge of after his brother Mat- 
thew came to the United States. 

Freeman's Journal or The North American Intelligencer was 
established April 25, 1781, by Francis Bailey. It appeared twice 
weekly, its price was four pence, and it was printed in Market 
Street. About 1780 Philip Freneau became connected with the 
paper and contributed to its columns for three or four years. ^^ 
Its motto was "Open to all Parties but influenced by none," but 
as a matter of fact it was Federalist in its principles. The pub- 
lication of the paper was suspended in 1792. 

The only newspaper published in Philadelphia in French dur- 
ing the Federalist period was The American Star.^'- It was ed- 
ited by Tanguy at 85 Vine Street. Each page was divided into 
two columns, one in English, the other in French. The paper 
was given up largely to French aft'airs and advertisements. 

Finlay's American Naval and Commercial Register was pub- 
lished by Samuel Finlay at 49 Chestnut Street. The price was 
four dollars per annum, later increased to five, and it appeared 
twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday. It was chiefly a mercan- 
tile newspaper. Two pages were ahvays allotted to "Prices Cur- 
rent and Marine Intelligence," and the other two pages given 
over to advertisements. Here information could be obtained con- 
cerning the arrival and departure of vessels at Philadelphia and 
other ports, their cargoes, owners and destinations, announce- 
ments of vessels, land and merchandise for sale, prices of stock, 
etc. Some attention was given to the activities of Congress and 
there were few notices concerningr foreign affairs. ^^ 



^^ See first issue of Carey's Daily Advertiser, file in Pennsylvania His- 
torical Society Library. 

" Hudson, History of Journalism, p. 185. 

^^ February to May, 1794, (stray nos.), Pennsylvania Historical So- 
ciety Library. 

"File in Ridgeway Branch of the Philadelphia Library Company. 



CHAPTER II 

The Financial System 
/. Nature of the Criticisms 

During Washington's first administration the chief event was 
the reorganization of the financial system. Hamilton's famous 
reports and the debates in Congress to which they gave rise 
called forth a mass of criticism in newspapers and pamphlets. 
Although the tariff and the mint aroused very little opposition, 
vigorous attacks were made upon the funding of the public 
debt, the assumption of the state debts, the establishment of the 
bank, and the imposition of the excise duty on distilled spirits. 
The arguments were similar to those made in Congress, with 
perhaps a little more emphasis on the appeal to sectional and 
class prejudices. The controversy was, however, by no means 
one-sided. Hamilton's defenders were quite as numerous and 
quite as active as his critics, and their productivity was equally 
voluminous. 

The criticisms were both general and specific. The articles 
published in The National Gazette under the pseudonyms "Cam- 
illus" and "Caius" are good examples of the general type of 
criticism. "It is a fact in our interior economy," says Camillus, 
"that it is a declared^ opinion, that the present debt (amounting 
to 70 millions and supported by imposts and excises), is a na- 
tional blessing.' It is a fact that the principal measures of the 
government have been planned under the influence of that ma- 
lign opinion. It is a fact that immense wealth has been accu- 
mulated into a few hands and that public measures have favored 
that accumulation. It is a fact that public money appropriated to 
the sinking of the debt has been laid out, not so as most to sink 
the debt, but so as to succour gamblers in the funds who have 
made from 500 to 800 per cent on their capitals. It is a fact 
that the bank law has given a bounty of four or five millions of 
dollars to men, in great part, of the same description. It is a 
fact that a share of this bounty went immediately into the pockets 
of the very men most active and forward in granting it. These 

' The National Gazette, October 20, 1792. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 Z7 

facts speak an alarming effort within towards a monied aristoc- 
racy and a government by artifice and influence." "Caius's" de- 
nunciation of Hamilton was especially florid and picturesque. ^ 
"He has devised systems that have already produced consequences 
most pernicious to the interests, honor and happiness of our 
country; systems which like seas of corruption will, if pursued, 
overwhelm and destroy in their poisonous current, every free and 
valuable principle of our government. 

"The funding project interweaving the plans of assumption, 
excise and irredeemability of debt and a mortgage of the best 
funds of the country beyond the power of legislative control were 
but a single dash of the pen of this bold adventurer and it 
speedily became a favorite maxim with the Myrmidons of specu- 
lation who sprang up like Hydras in every quarter, eager to root 
on the best blood and treasure of the people 'that the power and 
efficacy of the new system should be tried at its outset by an ex- 
periment of measures to the full extent of the authority granted 
and that opposition, if any, had better be met in its earlier than 
more advanced stages.' The next project was the Bank scheme 
which may be regarded as the consummation of the funding 
project and the union of the government itself with the new cre- 
ated monied interests which that produced and the last project is 
that of manufactures so called, or in other words, a new system 
of monopolies, exclusive privileges and charters of incorporation, 
grounded on the favorite, new assumed doctrine of discretion and 
the undefined powers of Congress. 

"The baneful effects of the funding system 

will be found in its combination with the Bank, manufactures and 
monopoly schemes, all of which are to be regarded as links of 
the same chain. Two principles are also produced by this sys- 
tem, each of them alike novel and repugnant to the genius and 
spirit of the federal constitution ; the first, a power in Congress 
and that exclusively too, of the states, to grant charters of incor- 
poration and monopolies, the other, the practicability of having 



'Ihid., January 16, 1792. 



38 Smith College Studies in History 

in Congress, placement, or in other words, members, who in the 
character of Bank directors may receive salaries and emoluments 
from a corporation which they themselves have created, which 
salaries and emoluments being at all times in the discretion of 
the stockholders, may be augmented to any amount and produce 
all the consequences of an actual bribe. 

"Certain I am that in whatever degree the measures I have 
scrutinized may be hostile to the first principles of the govern- 
ment, the great agricultural interests of the community will be 
thereby rendered subordinate, tributary, and dependent upon the 
new created, associated and associating interests of speculation, 
commerce and manufactures and the equal rights and equal in- 
terests of the yeomanry of our country, who constitute its 
strength, its wealth, and its firmest pillars, will be shamefully 
prostrated at the shrine of Mammon and Ambition." 

2. The Funding of the Public Debt 
"Agricola,^' in advocating the funding of the public debt, 
several months before Hamilton submitted his report, points out 
the similarity between our situation in 1789 and that of the Brit- 
ish in the reign of William HI. Specie was scarce, there was 
a general lack of confidence in the government and public se- 
curities had fallen 40 to 60 per cent. Mr. Montague, Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, saved the situation by funding the public debt 
and putting England's credit on a firm basis. This policy formed 
the foundation for England's greatness. Immense sums of 
money flowed into the country, its value was lessened and the 
ministry was able gradually to reduce the interest on the public 
debt. Industry was stimulated by the abundance of money, 
taxes were easily paid and the funded debt increased the circu- 
lating medium. "From the day that such a system is adopted and 
pursued, we may date the commencement of the rising splendor 
of this country. Every palliative or plan that may fall short of 
this system will only postpone this glorious period." 



^Pennsylvania Packet, April 18, 1789. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 39 

Other reasons given in the Packet for the funding of the 
debt were as follows ;■* 

( 1 ) Funding a debt creates an artificial capital which in- 
vigorates industry. (2) Public credit is a mine of wealth; it 
will supply the exigencies of the country with money attracted 
from abroad at the usual rate of interest. This money, employed 
in commerce, agriculture, and manufactures will yield a profit 
far above the rate of interest paid. The balance will be a 
clear gain to the country and will contribute to the support 
of additional taxes. Foreigners who once deposit their wealth 
here will be interested in the welfare of this country, will be in- 
clined to immigrate with their families and make a valuable ad- 
dition to our population and resources. (3) The United States, 
situated as she is near the valuable possessions of the great mari- 
time powers of Europe, will be exposed to the need of active in- 
terference in the quarrels of those nations, if she is not in a con- 
dition to support her neutrality. It was the deranged state of 
her finances which compelled France to abandon her Allies, the 
Dutch, and to submit to the humiliating peace which England 
dictated. "The United States cannot expect to be exempt from 
the calamities that other nations have experienced from a loss of 
public credit and a feeble administration of their affairs." (4) 
We cannot argue that the United States is unable to establish 
public credit by funding the debt because of a lack of resources. 
She has resources far beyond any demands that can be made 
upon them to satisfy just claims. 

"The Observer,"^ writing to the American planters and farm- 
ers, endeavors to impress upon them the fact that it is vital to 
their interests that the credit of the nation be put on a firm basis. 
He argues that the farming class in this country is so numerous 
and holds so great a proportion of the property that it has a right 
to a decided influence in the measures of the government. Ag- 
riculture now is, and for a century to come, must remain the 
prevailing interest. "The war of independence was yours — our 



*Ibid., August 17, 1789. 

^Pennsylvania Packet, "The Observer." X, January 4, 1790. 



40 Smith College Studies in History 

present form of government became a sacred reality by the seal 
of your suffrages, and the measures of the Treasury Department 
must be addressed to your good understanding and sense of na- 
tional honor to render them successful. The evils resulting from 
a loss of public credit may affect others first — on you they fall 
heaviest. Merchants, monied men and those who have great 
property afloat are on the watch — they have leisure to collect ev- 
ery information, a correspondence by every post and through 
half the world advertise them of the evil and their property by 
some change in its situation is secured, while you, without in- 
formation and unsuspicious, are ensnared. Every possible im- 
position in public credit will operate thus — either the price of 
your produce will fall or the articles you purchase rise, or the 
deceitful medium center in your hands 

"The first thing you ought to demand is a stable system for the 
public debt which may be done by placing the whole of every 
description under one responsible board ; the next is a circulat- 
ing medium of fixed value. To accomplish this, I am sensible 
there must be some kind of direct taxation by the United States, 
for it is not probable that an impost and excise will equitably 
fund the whole debt." The separate states now exercise direct 
taxation; if this were all taken over by the general government, 
there would be such a saving that a part of what is now paid 
would suffice. The articles taxed, the rates, and the methods of 
collection are different in the thirteen states. Many more tax 
collectors are thus employed and there is room for much corrup- 
tion. The writer suggests that the United States government 
assume the debts of the states. In addition to the impost and 
excise, let there be a direct tax on the single article of improved 
land at three cents an acre. This will suffice to establish our 
public credit. This will mean a great saving, as not more than 
one third the amount that is being paid will be needed. 

Those who contended against paying in full the holders of 
alienated certificates did so on the ground that most of such 
holders were speculators who had taken advantage of the exi- 
gencies of the original creditors of the government to make large 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 41 

sums of money. "A customer,"*' writing in their defense, ar- 
gues as follows : "The holders of such certificates are called 
speculators, and what then? Is not every member of the com- 
munity a speculator? Is it not as just and as honorable to specu- 
late in certificates as in houses, land, articles of merchandise, 
etc. ? Nay, in many instances much more so. Especially, when 
the present holders had compassion on the original holders and 
bought their certificates at the market price and at a considerable 
risk, while those of toryish principles would not touch them and 
I am mistaken if it be not these that are now endeavoring to raise 
an outcry. But the certificates have altered in value. Very true. 
And what species of property is it that has not undergone the 
same fate, gold itself not excepted? Did they not change value 
in the hands of the holders for the time being? Must not every 
holder of property, be it of what kind it may, abide by the change 
of its value?" 

The objection most frequently advanced against restoring the 
credit was that the original creditors had disposed of their 
claims at a low price and that if the government were to fulfil 
its promises it would not benefit the real sufferers. ''Observer,"" 
however, is of the opinion that the part of the public debt which 
has been sold at a low price, is only a small part of the aggregate 
debt. "It is a small proportion of the national paper which 
hath made the show in circulation. The speculation in paper hath 
been a kind of gambling, artificially kept up between distant 
parts, a few sagacious ones have been fortunate and many have 
been losers. Thus circumstanced, by many times passing and re- 
passing, a small proportion of the public paper hath made a great 
appearance. The great weight of debt is still in the hands of 
the original holders, men who loaned or did service for their 

country from noble motives men who had rather 

brave some distress in their private circumstances than sell their 
just claims for a trifle." Of those who have alienated their 
certificates, some did so from necessity because of the tardiness 



^Pennsylvania Gazette, February 3, 1790. 
'Pennsylvania Packet, February 18, 1790. 



42 Smith College Studies in History 

of the government in paying its obligations. To them sympathy 
is due, but those who disposed of their certificates out of pure 
speculation justly deserve to sufifer a loss. 

"Mercator," writing in the National Gazette some two years 
later, attempted to show that the public debt was not being ex- 
tinguished by the funding system, but was rather being increased. 
Hamilton answered these charges in two letters published in the 
same paper under the name of "Civis."^ 

In the first letter, September 5, 1792, "Civis" characterized 
"Mercator" as follows : "He has shown in the true spirit of a 
certain junto (who, not content with the large share of power 
they have in the government are incessantly laboring to monop- 
olize the whole of its power and to banish from it every man who 
is not subservient to their preposterous and all-grasping views), 
that he has been far more solicitous to arraign than to manifest 
the truth — to take away, than to afford consolation to the people 
of the United States." As proof that the debt of the United 
States has increased and is continuing to increase "Mercator" 
cited the "present amount and the increasing weight of the duties 
of impost and excise." "Let facts," says "Civis," "decide the 
soundness of this logic. In the last session of Congress, the only 
excise duty which exists was reduced upon an average 15 per 
cent. The only addition which was then made to the imposts was 
for carrying on the Indian war and by avoiding recourse to per- 
manent loans for that purpose to avoid an increase of the debt. 
How then can that which was done to avoid an increase of debt, 
be a proof that it has increased?" 

Hamilton's second letter was dated September 11, 1792. Af- 
ter discussing further "Mercator's" arguments, "Civis" makes 
this statement. "It is sufficient to observe that one good effect 
of the measures of finance which have been adopted by the pres- 
ent government is at least unequivocal. The public credit has 
been ejfectually restored." 

Another letter written by Hamilton in defense of his measures 



Hamilton's Works, Federal Edition, vol. Ill, pp. 28-40. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 43 

and signed "Fact," appeared in the National Gazette the same day 
as the second letter to "Mercator."^ The object of this letter is 
to examine into the foundations of the statement that "certain 
characters are charged with advocating the pernicious doctrine 
that 'public debts are public blessings' and with being friends to 
a perpetuation of the public debt of the country." "Fact" is 
confident that the particular person aimed at is the secretary, and 
goes on to say that "that officer, it is very certain, explicitly main- 
tained that the funding of the existing debt of the United States 
would render it a national blessing ; and a man has only to travel 
through the United States with his eyes open, and to observe the 
invigoration of industry in every branch to be convinced that the 
position is well founded. But, whether right or wrong, it is quite 
a different thing from maintaining as a general proposition that 
a public debt is a public blessing, particular and temporary cir- 
cumstances might render that advantageous at one time which at 
another might be hurtful." "Fact" gives extracts from the sec- 
retary's reports to show that his conduct and language have been 
uniformly in opposition to the views charged against him. The 
reports, he says, are so long that most people do not take time to 
read them and this gives his calumniators an opportunity to mis- 
inform the public. It is very difficult to satisfy every one. "A 
certain description of men are for getting out of debt, yet are 
against all taxes for raising money to pay it off ; they are among 
the foremost for carrying on war and yet will have neither loans 
nor taxes. They are alike opposed to what creates debt and to 
what avoids it."^*^ 

The opponents of the funding system were as vehement in 
denunciation as its advocates were in its support. "A citizen of 
Philadelphia"^^ writes that it is absurd to reason in favor of the 
redemption of alienated certificates at their nominal value. This 
demand is made of the people of the United States, and they 
are composed of the widows, orphans, soldiers, and farmers who 
were compelled by necessity to sell their certificates to brokers 



September 11, 1792. 
"Hamilton's Works, vol. Ill, pp. 40-45. 



44 Smith College Studies in History 

and speculators. They are the persons who pay the 30 per cent 
upon their own certificates and have to toil and labor to redeem 
them. "There is not a despotic government in Europe that 
would dare to perpetrate such a flagitious act of oppression and 
injustice. In more temperate and virtuous times, the authors of 
such a proposition will be considered as the scourges and pests of 
mankind." The following poem appeared in the Pennsylvania 
Gazette'^- soon after Hamilton presented his report on the public 
credit : 

"Tax on Tax," young Belcour cries, 
"More imposts and a new excise, 

A public debt's a public blessing, 

Which 'tis of course a crime to lessen." 

Each day a fresh report he broaches, 

That spies and Jews may ride in coaches, 

Soldiers and farmers don't despair, 

Untax'd as yet, are Earth and Air. 

Against those advocates of the funding system who turned to 
England as the great example of a nation prosperous under a 
national debt, "A Pennsylvanian"^^ argues that "the wealth of 
Britain is less owing to her debt than to her wars and extortions 
in the East and West Indies . . . The present debt of the 
United States, if funded and entailed upon our posterity as has 
been proposed, will not only bend our shoulders but sink our 
whole bodies into the earth." The government will be able to bor- 
row money at will and engage in wars without the consent of 
the people. The debt will necessitate the creation of four or five 
thousand revenue officers "who will devour the fruits of our in- 
dustry like so many locusts and caterpillars." Oppressive land 
taxes will be necessary, because the impost and excise duties as 
they are multiplied will be eluded. The power of the executive 
department will be so increased as "to destroy the balance of the 
constitution and thereby to introduce monarchy into our coun- 
try." "The public debt will promote bloody penal laws, disafifec- 



Pcnnsylvania Gazette. March 11, 1789. 
'March 17, 1790. 
■Ibid., April 21, 1790. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 45 

tion to the government, bribery, perjury, idleness, gambling, 
poverty, misery, and slavery." 

"A Farmer" contributed a series of articles on the funding 
system in the Pennsylvania Gazette during the early months of 
1790. Writing from the point of view of the agricultural class, 
he could see in the financial measures of the federal government 
only ruin to the group he represented. "Such injustice and op- 
pression may be colored over with fine words, but there is a 
time coming when the pen of history will detect and expose the 
folly of the arguments in favor of the proposed funding system 
as well as its iniquity. Instead of disgracing our country, by 
treating our army with so much ingratitude and injustice, it 
would be far better to double the public debt by paying the soldier 
and speculator the same sum. If the balance still due the army 
is paid them, it would spread money through every county and 
township of the United states, if paid to the speculator, all the 
cash of the United States would soon center in our cities and 
later in England and Holland."^'* 

In another article, the same writer urges that the original 
holders be paid 6 per cent according to contract and the pur- 
chaser 3 per cent. That the original holders sold their certificates 
for any other reason than necessity, he declares is true only in 
rare instances. "A hungry creditor, a distressed family, drove 
most of them to the Broker's Office and compelled them to sur- 
render up their certificates. The whole report of the Secretary 
(as he so often styles himself), is so flimsy and so full of ab- 
surdities, contradictions and impracticabilities, that it is to be 
hoped it will be voted out of Congress without a dissenting 
vote."^^ The funding system, he thinks, will have the following 
results in this country: (1) All the cash will be drawn from the 
country to our cities and from there exported to England and 
Holland to pay the annual interest of our greatly oppressive debt. 
(2) It will be impossible for farmers to borrow money to im- 
prove their lands, for who will lend money to an individual 



'Ibid., January 27, 1790. 
■Ibid., February 3, 1790. 



46 Smith College Studies in History 

for 6 per cent when government securities will yield from 8 to 
12 per cent? (3) It will check trade and manufactures. (4) 
It will fill our country with brokers and idle speculators. (5) 
It will produce a principal of $200,000 for a few nabobs in each 
of the states who will use the money buying townships and coun- 
ties to be cultivated by tenants who will administer to the ambi- 
tion and power of these nabobs "enabling them to establish titles 
and overthrow the liberties of our country." 

"The farmers," he continues, "never were in half the danger 
of being ruined by the British government that they now are by 
their own. Had any person told them in the beginning of the 
war that after paying the yearly rent of their farms for seven 
years to carry on this war, at the close of it their farms should 
not be worth more than one-fourth of their original cost and 
value, in consequence of a funding system, is there a farmer 
that would have embarked in the war ? No there is not ! Great 
Britain paid the Tories for their loyalty, although they did her 
cause more harm than good. Certainly the United States should 
not have less gratitude to her most deserving citizens than Great 
Britain has shown to her least deserving subjects." In another 
article "A Farmer"^^ complains that all the benefits of the 
funding system are to go to New York as that city was ad- 
mitted early into the secrets of the Treasury. "North and 
South Carolina and Georgia who all gave pure whig blood for 
their certificates are to be cajoled out of them by a few rich 
New York Tories and British agents who perhaps helped to 
feed the very armies that destroyed the Southern States and all 
the taxes paid by them are to center in New York." In dis- 
cussing the means to be employed to raise the money needed to 
re-establish the credit as Hamilton outlined, "A Farmer"^'^ 
thinks a land tax would be preferable to the kind of tax pro- 
posed by the Secretary. We pay a land tax once a year and are 
then done with it, but if the Secretary's plan is carried out we 
shall have to pay a shilling or so a day on everything we eat. 



Ibid., February 10, 1790. 
Ibid., February 17, 1790. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 47 

drink or wear. This daily tax must come out of the produce of 
our farms and the labour of our hands. The farms must finally 
pay the immense tax that is to be raised to pay the speculators." 

At the beginning of the war, it was understood that the crown 
lands which had been ceded to the government were to pay the 
expenses of the war. But the lands had not been used for this 
purpose and were being sold for the trifling sum of a shilling 
and six pence an acre. "Had these lands been offered for sale 
for alienated certificates, they would soon have swallowed up 
the whole of that part of the debt of the United States, and 
those very foreigners who are now buying up those certificates 
to draw an interest on them, would at this time have been busy 
in not only purchasing but in settling our lands with the farmers 
and mechanics of European countries." "A Farmer" suggests 
that it would be well to oblige every Congressman speaking in 
favor of the Secretary's report, first to lay his hands on his heart 
and swear he was not a speculator. 

"Caius" writing in the National Gasette'^^ cites the advice 
of Mirabeau to the American people, "that if they wished to 
preserve their liberties, they should avoid European systems of 
finance and above all never to fund their public debt," as proof 
that they should not accept the Secretary's plan. "If it be 'that 
the exigencies of a nation are at all times equal to its resources,' 
the system of funding may be regarded as the true secret of 
rendering public debt (not public credit) immortal." He also 
argued that a funded debt is a great source of corruption, as it 
creates a monied interest distinct from the great body of the 
people, and that the public faith might have been equally pre- 
served by the policy of discharging the principal of the debt as 
far and as fast as the resources of the country would permit and 
by the prompt payment of the annual interest. "Less is it to be 
doubted that the great influx of money and with it the rising 
credit of our country for the last three years has been principally 
occasioned by those necessities of the European nations which 
produced a greatly increased demand for our produce and by the 



"Caius," II, January 26, 1792. 



48 Smith College Studies in History 

operation of the impost, tonnage and excise laws of Congress 
which brought into the coffers of the general government the 
whole commercial revenue of the United States." 

Hamilton expressed the wish "that the creation of debt should 
always be accompanied with the means of extinguishment." But 
history and experience, so "Caius" argues, ^^^ have taught us that 
such a wish is wholly inapplicable to nations that have once 
adopted funding. The examples of European countries and 
particularly England, show us plainly, that a funded debt makes 
it easier to borrow. The legislature finds it more convenient to 
borrow than to impose new taxes until finally the debt is so huge 
that to support public credit and the needs of the nation, further 
burdens must be placed on the property and industry of the com- 
munity. Neither could the sinking fund be an effective means 
for extinguishing the debt. Whenever a need should arise be- 
yond the existing ability to obtain a loan, the sinking fund would 
be regarded as a subsidiary fund, as a security upon which to 
raise more money, thus facilitating the contraction of new debts 
while intended for the discharge of the old. "Brutus, "^^ writing 
in the National Gazette, sums up his objections to the funding 
system as follows : It has given added weight to the general 
government and particularly to the Treasury Department which 
was never contemplated by the framers of the constitution by 
throwing the huge sum of fifty million dollars into the hands of 
the wealthy and has attached them to all its measures by motives 
of private interest. This great monied interest has been made 
formidable by means of a bank monopoly. By means of unlim- 
ited impost and excise laws "the funding system has anticipated 
the best resources of the country and swallowed them all up in 
future payments." The wealth of the country has been trans- 
ferred to the possession of rich speculators, both foreign and 
domestic, while the industrious mechanics and farmers and the 
poorer class in general are compelled forever to pay tribute to 
these highly favored classes. These speculators are either for- 



' National Ga::ette, "Caius," IV, February 9, 1792. 
"Brutus" I, March 15, 1792. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 49 

eigners or people closely associated with the Treasury. "Almost 
the whole of the United States, like Roman provinces, will even- 
tually become tributary to the seat of government or one or two 
large maritime towns and the continual drains they will suffer 
will either be dissipated in luxury and licentiousness at the seat 
of government or be exported to foreign countries for the use 
of foreign stock-holders." By being given opportunities to make 
enormous profits, people are drawn from "their habits of pro- 
ductive labour" and capital formerly used in commerce is diverted 
to the purpose of speculation. 

In another letter, "Brutus"-^ calls the attention of his fellow- 
citizens to the ever increasing power of the secretary which he 
thinks is such as to occasion apprehension. "It does not appear 
to me to be a question of federalism or anti-federalism, but it 
is the Treasury of the United States against the people. . . . 
The influence which the Treasury has on our government is 
truly alarming, it already forms a center around which our poli- 
tical system is beginning to revolve . . . The state of our 
country is critical . . . To none is the present a period of 
more consequence than to the mechanic : already monopolies have 
been established at his expense. . . . What will be the fate 
of any private manufacturer who shall see a national manufac- 
tory rising into existence whose workmen shall have exclusive 
privileges such as exemption from militia duty and the like?" 

According to "American Farmer, "-^ the practice of fund- 
ing has gradually enfeebled every state which has adopted it. 
The funding system is highly unjust as it mortgages the labour 
of posterity. "By this means the quantity of property in the 
country is greatly increased in idea as compared to former 
times. . . yet not at all increased in reality. We may boast 
of large quantities of money but this exists only in name, in 
paper, in public faith." In a later discussion of the same sub- 
ject, -^ the writer gives further arguments against the funding 



National Gazette, September 1, 1792. 

• "American Farmer," IV, National Gazette, March 2, 1793. 
'Ibid., V, Alarch 9, 1793. 



50 Smith College Studies in History 

system. It will cause a confluence of people and wealth to the 
capital by the great sums levied in the provinces to pay the in- 
terest on the debt. Taxes levied to pay the interest on the debt 
are apt either to heighten the price of labour or be an oppression 
to the poorer classes. Foreigners by possessing a large share 
of our national funds may come to have too much influence in our 
government. Funding will encourage many to live a useless and 
inactive life as the greater part of public stock is always in the 
hands of idle people who live on their revenue. Finally, fund- 
ing will prevent the farmer from making necessary improve- 
ments on his property as his revenue will be considerably dimin- 
ished by the excise and other taxes. Another writer-^ sees no 
reason why we should put our credit on a firm basis in order 
to be able to borrow readily. We are so far removed from every 
foe that we do not need to make the same provision for our na- 
tional defence as European countries. "We do not need to in- 
crease our military or naval armament ; we do not have to spend 
money for court intrigue." 

Some of the writers of the time seemed to justify Professor 
Beard's-^ contention that the capitalistic interests were respon- 
sible both for the establishment of the government and the adop- 
tion of the financial system. For this evidence, Beard had gone 
to the treasury records which show the names of many of those 
creditors who funded their public securities under the law of 
August 4, 1790. But the Treasury records, though trustworthy 
so far as they go, are unfortunately not complete. Beard's 
method of procedure was as follows. The names of all the Sena- 
tors and Representatives of the first Congress were arranged in 
alphabetical order. It was then ascertained whether or not their 
names appeared in the Treasury records as having funded their 
public securities. "A study of the Treasury records shows that 
the Senators who held securities and voted for the funding bill 
were, with one or two exceptions, among the large holders of 



'*Ibid., "Gracchus," March 9, 1793. 

^ C. A. Beard, Economic Origins of Jcffcrsonian Democracy (New 
York, 1915). 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 51 

public paper and that the Senators of the same class who voted 
against the bill were among the minor holders."-*' A study of 
the vote in the House upon the Senate amendment to the fund- 
ing bill, providing for the assumption of state debts, shows that 
almost one-half of the members were security holders and that 
thirty-two out of the sixty-four members voted in favor of the 
measure. "This certainly justifies Jefferson's assertion that had 
those actually interested in the outcome of the funding process 
withdrawn from voting on Hamilton's proposals not a single one 
of them would have been carried. 

"An examination of the vote with reference to the geographi- 
cal distribution of the public securities would seem to show be- 
yond question that nearly all the members, security holders and 
non-security holders alike, represented the dominant economic 
interests of their respective constituencies rather than their per- 
sonal interests. In many instances there was, it is evident, a 
singular coincidence between public service, as the members con- 
ceived it, and private advantage ; but the charge of mere corrup- 
tion must fall to the ground. It was a clear case of a collision of 
economic interests ; fluid capital versus agrarianism. The rep- 
resentation of one interest was as legitimate as that of the other, 
and there is no more ground for denouncing the members of 
Congress who held securities and voted to sustain public credit 
than there is for denouncing the slave-owners who voted against 
the Quaker anti-slavery memorials on March 23, 1790."-''' 

The following extract from a pamphlet by "An American 
Farmer"2s illustrates this point : "Whatever were the ostensible 
reasons for adopting the present government of the United 
States, there is no doubt but that it owed its existence to the in- 
fluence and artifices of a few men who had taken advantage of 
the distresses of the country and who had largely speculated in 
the certificates given for services rendered by the most merito- 



""Ibid., p. 180. 
"Ibid., pp. 194-195. 

^Letters Addressed to the Yeomanry of the United States on Funding 
and Banking Systems (Philadelphia, 1793), Letter I. 



52 Smith College Studies in History 

rious citizens. The farmers and soldiers knowing how much 
their country had suffered during a long contest to support the 
natural rights of men, accepted certificates in lieu of their full 
pay although public opinion at the very moment of acceptance 
had reduced them to one-eighth of their nominal value. These 
original and honorable creditors, when they parted with their 
certificates, regarded the public opinion respecting their value, 
as the most certain criterion of the value of the public debt. 
The American farmers and soldiers should take care that the 
property sacrificed by them to their country when in distress is 
not by a most iniquitous funding system now put into the pockets 
of undeserving speculators." In a later passage the writer char- 
acterizes Hamilton as a "person who hitherto has been suffered 
to assume too great a degree of authority in the government ; 
his decisions will not be regarded as oracles except by those who 
never think for themselves or are too indolent to examine his 
opinions, always enveloped in darkness and mystery. "-^ Na- 
tional credit^*^ he considers as a general expedient used by modern 
statesmen to mortgage the property and labor of posterity in 
order to satisfy debts entered into by the present generation. 
"What claim has the present generation to the property and la- 
bour of posterity? Such a practice is highly unjust and criminal. 
I would go farther and say that the present generation even to 
preserve its own existence, has no right to infringe upon the 
property of posterity." 

Similar arguments were also advanced by "A Citizen. "^^ "In 
the election for the first Congress, care was taken to choose none 
that were supposed to be inimical to the government. Those 
who had been the largest speculators and those who looked for 
ofihces under the government were loudest in proclaiming its per- 
fection and most industrious in artfully raising the hue and cry 
of anti-federalism against such candidates as they suspected 
would not favor their designs ; excited by their avarice, they used 



""Ibid., Letter II. 

""Ibid., Letter III. 

^^ A Review of the Revenue System, Letter II. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 53 

every art to secure their own or the election of their friends. The 
census not being taken, the representation was unequal and the 
states where the speculators had their principal interest, had too 
great a proportion of numbers." 

One of Hamilton's arguments for funding, he says, was that 
by a rapid rise of the market price of public securities they 
would be prevented from going into the hands of foreigners at 
a low value. The funding system did raise the price of the se- 
curities, he admits, but it did not prevent them from going 
abroad. Nominally it recjuired more money to purchase them, 
but as the payments were generally made in goods, a large pro- 
portion of which were luxuries, it did not add to the riches of 
the country except through a temporary increase in the revenues. 
If it had been desired to prevent them from falling into the pos- 
session of foreigners it should have been made a condition that 
they should remain the property of citizens at least for a limited 
time. Evidently the funding system was designed for the Euro- 
pean market. To foreign purchasers, alone, the irredeemable 
quality of the funded debt was suited. The Secretary had said 
that funding the debt would be a national blessing, that the trans- 
fer of stock would in most cases answer the purpose of money, 
that it would promote agriculture and manufacturing and lower 
the rate of interest. "Nay its efifects have been the very re- 
verse, for those who might otherwise have purchased and im- 
proved lands, built houses, established manufactures, or lent 
their money at interest to such as would have applied it to such 
purposes, have vested their money in the funds and deposited 
their public securities in the Bank of the United States or in the 
banks of the individual states. . . It will not be pretended 
that it has lowered the rate of interest, for in proportion as pub- 
lic securities rose in the market, the rate of interest also rose. . 
. . Far from cementing the union of the states, it has given 
the most deep and incurable wound to their union and confi- 
dence in each other. The citizens of one state have been en- 
abled to procure the public securities of the citizens of the other 
states at a small part of their value. . . As to adding to the 



54 Smith College Studies in History 

security of the states against foreign attack, the funding system, 
by absorbing the revenues and impairing the confidence of the 
people in the fiscal measures of Congress, has in great degree 
tied our hands while we are buffeted by almost all the nations 
with whom we have any correspondence. "-^^ 

J. The Assumption of State Debts 

Another feature of Hamilton's great financial program which 
gave rise to a sharp division of public opinion was the assump- 
tion of state debts by the federal government. "A Citizen"^^ 
charges corruption in the passage of the Assumption Act in the 
pamphlet already quoted, "Nor could it be finally carried, if the 
disgraceful and venal bargaining about the seat of government 
had not been brought into its aid." The writer goes on to say 
that most of the states had already discharged their debts or 
made provision for it and that they should not be made respon- 
sible for the debts of the few negligent ones. 

In another letter'^^ he points out that if it had not been for 
assumption there would not have been any need for the excise, 
for notwithstanding the fact that the funding system had greatly 
increased the domestic debt, the revenue coming from the im- 
posts would still have been adequate. "Consequently, so far 
from preventing an interference with state revenues, the as- 
sumption of state debts created the only existing necessity of 
that interference." Another objection put forth was that if the 
federal government were able to pay the debts of the states, the 
states would thereby be encouraged in an extravagant and use- 
less expenditure of money. 'Ts paying back to the states their 
own debts and the requisitions of interest which they had dis- 
charged and thus enabling them to make expensive improvements 
or squander away money in unnecessary purposes or in extrava- 
gant salaries without taxing their citizens, while at the same 
time, the same persons as citizens of the Union have their estates 



'■ Ibid., Letter V. 
'Ibid., Letter IIL 
'Ibid., Letter IV. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 55 

mortgaged for the repayment of the same debt and a growing in- 
terest in an irredeemable form — I say is this a national bless- 



ing 



?"35 



Another writer puts his objection to assumption on the ground 
that direct taxation by Congress would destroy the independence 
of the states. "For this [assumption] there was no general pe- 
tition from the people. No urgency pressed it. But it favored 
the object of administration. State debts sold at a low rate and 
therefore might easily be monopolized. To dissolve all money 
relationships between individuals and the separate states, would, 
on the one hand, diminish the state power and tend to consolida- 
tion and, on the other, create an undue influence by which the 
consolidated power might be managed. . . Congress pos- 
sessed the power of indirect taxation and the states the power of 
direct taxation. Hence, the public debt could have been diffused 
upon the resources of the nation so as to have been less burthen- 
some upon an exclusive branch of those resources by leaving the 
states respectively to provide for state debts. 

"A recurrence to direct taxation by Congress will swallow up 
the little sovereignty now left to the once sovereign, individual 
states and every accumulation of the debts of the Union is an 
impulse towards that end. . . . Without pulsation, without 
elasticity, they [the states] will dwindle gradually into a tale that 
has been told and their parts will crumble and dissipate like a 
corporation of beavers whose waters have been drained away."^^ 

Hamilton's chief argument in advocating the payment of 
state debts by the general government was the matter of con- 
venience. So far as the expenditure of money was concerned, 
the amount needed would be the same in either case, but it would 
be far more convenient and orderly to have one general plan 
under one authority than thirteen different schemes administered 
by as many heads. Many saw his point of view and lent him 



""Ibid., Letter V. 

^ "An American Farmer," Letters Addressed to the Yeomanry of the 
United States on the Funding and Banking Systems (Philadelphia, 1793), 
Letter IL 



56 Smith College Studies in History 

their support. An article in the Pennsylvania Gazette, December 
30, 1789, is particularly interesting, coming as it does before the 
report on Public Credit was issued. Speaking of assumption, it 
says : "It is hardly possible to conceive how the peace and tran- 
quility of the Union can be preserved and justice done to every 
denomination of our domestic creditors upon any other plan. 
. . The operation of one general plan of taxation in conjunc- 
tion with twelve or thirteen rival systems, must be attended with 
inexplicable difficulties. The expense of distinct sets of officers, 
the temptations to fraud by different rates of duties, the difficulty 
of securing the collection upon several thousand miles of fron- 
tier, the incapacity of the states to meddle with goods when im- 
ported and so to check frauds, that power being now in Con- 
gress and many other reasons, all combine to shew the absurdity 
of different and clashing powers being exerted to effect that 
which ought to be one business." 

Another article in the same paper early the next year^" argued 
in favor of assumption on the same ground of order and uni- 
formity. "If any of the states should now think the measures 
against their interests, a short time will open their eyes to the 
confusion which must arise from a continuance in their present 
situation." The writer then goes on to consider several propo- 
sitions that have been presented to him, as affording means to 
provide the necessary funds if the state debts were assumed. He 
considers first the old method of requisition — leaving to each 
state its own way of collecting the sum demanded. Those who 
favor this method assert that now Congress has the power of 
coercion and can enforce payment from a delinquent state. 
But what is to be the subject of coercion? If it be the state in 
its corporate capacity, it can be done only by levying war upon 
the whole people and destroying their existence as a state ; if 
it is to be upon the private citizens as subjects of the United 
States, that would be attended with many difficulties. This ex- 
ercise of coercion would cause much friction and ill-feeling and 



February 10, 1790. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 57 

"either destroy the Union or annihilate all respect for the state 
government where it happens. . . The doctrine of requisition 
on the states, in every point of view, is a dangerous and imprac- 
tical one." 

Another proposition which the same writer examines is to 
apportion to each state its quota of the sum needed and allow 
Congress directly to tax the inhabitants, following in each state 
the method of taxation and collection which is used by its own 
government. This plan proposes as many modes of taxing and 
collecting as there are states, as no two states have a similar 
procedure. For the Treasury Board of the United States to 
control thirteen different systems would present many difficulties 
and give room for evasion and fraud which could never be de- 
tected. If neither of these schemes can be made to work satis- 
factorily, some plan must be devised by the government which 
shall operate through the whole country with equal expedition 
and justice. The mode of taxation must be plain enough for the 
people to understand or else they will not be satisfied and willing 
to pay. 'Tf there be any kind of property which is the basis 
of wealth throughout the Union and bears a near proportion to 
the ability of the people who must pay, if this kind of property 
cannot be secreted, if its nature is such that every man may prev- 
iously calculate his own taxes and detect an over-charge, if it is 
easily and cheaply collected, if its produce is ever in demand, 
so the person may pay his own taxes, this property on plain prin- 
:iples, should be the subject of direct taxation." 

4. The Excise 

Hamilton's report recommending an excise was submitted to 
Congress December 13, 1790. If the public credit were to be 
established on a firm foundation, according to the plan suggested 
in his report of January 9, 1790, and if the debts of the states 
were to be assumed, more revenue would be necessary than the 
existing duties supplied, and it was to meet this deficiency that 
he proposed the excise. The proposition to assume state debts 
met with strenuous opposition in Congress, and it was only by 



58 Smith College Studies in History 

the famous compromise between Jefferson and Hamilton by 
which southern votes were won for assumption and northern 
votes for a southern capital that the scheme was finally put 
through. 

"Sidney", writing in the National Gazette (April 23, 1792), 
says : "Is it not a matter, recorded and understood, that the 
Assumption of the state debts which alone created the necessity 
of the Excise was carried by a very small majority of that repre- 
sentation and under such circumstances, too, of management and 
inducement as were not very honorable?" He goes on to state 
his objections to the excise. In the first place it is a tax not con- 
sistent with liberty. The people cannot understand the excise as 
well as other direct taxes. ^'^ It is paid without the people really 
feeling how much they are paying and is in a measure taxing 
them blind-folded. 

His second objection is the extent to which the excise may 
be carried. Hamilton had argued that the proposed excise was 
the least burdensome source of revenue because distilled liquors 
were luxuries and could stand heavy taxation better than any- 
thing else. To this "Sidney" replies : "I call upon the contrivers 
and promoters of the system to mention that nation which has 
at any time introduced Excises on its domestic produce or manu- 
factures without extending the fatal grasp to the necessities of 
life which must ever be the most productive sources of that spe- 
cies of revenue." He feared that if once the excise were fully 
established, it would not long be laid on spirits alone, as lux- 
uries are used by comparatively few and revenue from them 
would necessarily be inadec[uate for the needs of government. 
It had been asserted by the College of Physicians that the ob- 
ject in imposing the excise was to promote health. This "Sid- 
ney" denies, and in reply to the suggestion of the Secretary that 
it was to prevent drunkenness, he says : "The Secretary well 
knew that the habits and circumstances of new settlements in 
particular rendered the use of spirits in some degree necessary." 



^ It will be noted that "Sidney" assumes that an excise is a direct tax, 
although his argument is really based upon the theory that it is indirect. 



Public Opinion in Phil.\delphia, 1789-1801 59 

The real objection to the tax, however, was poHtical. The 
people resented an excise levied by the central government. An 
excise imposed by the state was regarded as any other state tax 
while an excise by the central government was looked upon as 
a burden imposed by an external power. Hoping to make the 
tax less obnoxious, Hamilton suggested in his report that the 
excise officers be allowed no discretionary jurisdiction, that there 
be no abridgement to the right of trial by jury and that the offi- 
cers have no general power indiscriminately to search the houses 
and buildings of persons engaged in distilling liquor. But "Sid- 
ney" is of the opinion that the law can never be executed until 
these very powers are vested in these officers. Some disregard 
the law altogether, and some keep two stills, entering on record 
only one of them. "Sidney" concludes his denunciation of the 
excise in these words : "Any law that increases crimes, punish- 
ments, fines, seizures, and confiscation is injurious to the liberty 
and ensnaring to the happiness of the people. In all countries 
where the excise has prevailed these have been the results." 

Speaking of the political aspect of the tax, "Sentinel"^^ says : 
"The fate of the excise law will determine whether the powers 
of government of the United States are held by an aristocratic 
junto or by the people." Further, he states that the people have 
been so hostile to the measure that since its establishment the 
income from it has not been sufficient to pay the salaries of the 
officers employed in its collection. 

There were of course those who saw a favorable side to the 
excise. A writer in the Gazette of the United States, ^^ asserts 
that while the excise has necessarily diminished the consumption 
of spirituous liquors, the number of stills has increased. The 
reasons for this have been the growth of population, the decrease 
in the importation and consequent consumption of foreign spir- 
its, and the fact that the encouragement held out in the excise 
law has caused much attention to be given to the manufacture 
of gin and other spirits. As the result of this encouragement, 



'National Gazette, May 7, 1792. 
'September 22, 1792. 



60 Smith College Studies in History 

the quality will continually improve and in a short time the ex- 
port of spirits, already considerable, will be a source of great 
profit to the country. 

5. The Bank 

The principal reason given by those who opposed the estab- 
lishment of a National Bank was that it was unconstitutional. 
"A Pennsylvanian"^! asserts that "all the reasoning in the world 
can never from the constitution of the United States deduce a 
power in Congress to establish a National Bank. . . . All 
exclusive privileges or monopolies to private persons, for such 
the incorporated members of the National Bank must still be con- 
sidered, are inconsistent with the nature of our government and 
the sacred rights of the citizens who compose it." "Caius,"'*^ 
speaking of the unconstitutionality of the members of Congress 
holding the office of bank-directors under the authority of a 
law enacted by themselves and receiving emoluments which the 
stockholders shall vote, asks, "Why under the sanction of this 
precedent, may not the Secretary of the Treasury himself be 
eligible to a seat in Congress ?" The Secretary's system, he de- 
clares, "Is built on the basis of an humble and servile imitation 
of British Systems of finance and all their baneful concomitants 
of debt, funded and unfunded, annuities, chances, lotteries, and 
schemes from British authors and British statute books." He 
characterizes the designing junto responsible for the bank as 
"unanimous and diligent in intrigue, variable in principles, con- 
stant to flattery, talkers for liberty, but slaves to power." 

Many found it difficult to reconcile the idea of a National 
Bank with that clause in the constitution which states that "no 
senator or representative shall, during the time for which he was 
elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the 
United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments 
whereof shall have been increased during such time ; and no per- 
son holding any office under the United States shall be a member 



The American Daily Advertiser, February 5, 1791. 
' Letter III, in the National Gazette, February 6, 1792. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 61 

of either house during his continuance in office." Some of the 
critics of the Bank argued in the following manner : Congress 
establishes the Bank. The Bank by the authority of Congress 
can create offices and affix salaries, payable in part out of the 
money of the United States. Every member of Congress can 
make himself a member of the Bank, can vote for directors and 
ibe himself elected a director. Many have done so. But how can 
this be constitutional ? The government owns two millions of 
the bank stock, and the offices and salaries created for the man- 
agement of it may be considered as belonging to the United 
States. If the government owned all the stock, the unconstitu- 
tionality of the case would be perfectly self-evident. Further- 
more the people of the country are taxed to the amount of one- 
fifth of the whole bank-stock and still are not represented by a 
single vote, a clear contravention of that constitutional principle 
that taxation and representation should always go together. Ev- 
ery other stock-holder in the Bank has votes in direct ratio to his 
stock; why then do not the people of the United States enjoy 
the same privilege? To those who would say in defense that the 
British government has no vote in the Bank of England, it may 
be said it has no stock to entitle it to a vote."^^ 

"An American Farmer"^^ declared that the Bank was simply 
a scheme by which the wealth of the country was thrown into the 
hands of a few. It only made the rich richer and the poor poorer. 
The profits of the Bank are really an indirect tax on the com- 
munity. All who deal with that institution constitute one class 
and the stock-holders the other. The dealers deposit their bonds 
or notes carrying interest and receive in exchange bonds or notes 
of the stock-holders bearing no interest. The difference between 
receiving an interest out of paper while it pays none on similar 
paper constitutes the great source of profit to the Bank. This 
gain necessarily implies a loss which must be borne by somebody. 
Either the immediate dealers with the Bank must bear it or be 
reimbursed by those who deal wnth them. If not reimbursed 



' See for example The National Gazette, July 4, 1792. 

^Letters Addressed to the Yeomanry of the United States, II. 



62 Smith College Studies in History 

they would be ruined. Therefore the loss must fall upon the com- 
munity. "The contrivance is calculated to bestow upon the rich, 
interest upon the amount of their credit, not of their cash. Bank- 
paper is circulated to an amount far beyond a deposit in money. 
It rests on an idea called credit and all interest gotten for this 
surplus of paper, beyond a specie deposit, is paid by labour to 
the rich because they have what the poor ardently wish for. . . 
How delusive is a comparison between bank debts and private 
loans. The latter must consist of money or money's worth and, 
without one or the other, debts between individuals cannot be cre- 
ated. The former may be created though the bank possesses 
neither money nor money's worth and a banker may live upon the 
labour of others during his whole life, if he can conceal the 
fraud of his being a bankrupt. The latter are limited within reas- 
onable bounds because they are founded on real wealth, the for- 
mer may be infinitely multiplied by a printing press. In the lat- 
ter case, something is given for something; in the former the 
community pays something for nothing." In reply to the asser- 
tion of the Secretary that the Bank would be useful in support- 
ing the credit of the government and extending it aid in times of 
stress, the writer argues that "instead of supporting the credit of 
the government, the government must support the credit of the 
Bank. For if the credit of the government wavers, public paper 
cannot support the credit of the Bank. When the government 
shall need help, the Bank will need it also." The Bank violates 
the clearest constitutional principles for the following reasons : 
(1) Members of Congress may vote for the creation of a profi- 
table enterprize and themselves receive the profit. (2) They may 
impose a tax on the community, or a part of it, and instead of 
sharing in the burden, share in the plunder. (3) "A member of 
Congress, debauched by a profitable banking interest, ceases to be 
a citizen of the United States or an inhabitant of the state which 
chooses him as to the purpose of the constitution. He becomes a 
citizen and inhabitant of Carpenter's Hall. (4) Being a member 
of a corporation consisting chiefly or in part of foreigners, he is 
more under the influence of foreigners than of those who elected 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 63 

him. "The EngHsh who could not conquer us, may buy us." (5) 
If members of Congress are stock-holders and directors of the 
Bank, then an illegitimate interest is operating upon the national 
legislature, the representatives of the states are enticed away 
from their "natural and constitutional allegiance" by their inter- 
est in the Bank. It would be better to allow the Bank to have 
representatives in Congress than to permit the states to be robbed 
of their just quota. (6) The constitution provides that charges 
of impeachment shall originate in the House and be judged in 
the Senate. But if those who are to impeach and to decide upon 
the validity of impeachments may, in consequence of the bank- 
ing and paper systems, be gainers by any misapplication of 
money, it is obvious that this check provided by the constitution 
is useless."'*^ 



^ Ibid. 



CHAPTER III 
Foreign Relations 

1. Neutrality 

Foreign relations during the Federalist period were chiefly 
concerned with the great war in Europe between France and the 
Allies. The people of the United States had not yet developed 
the spirit of diplomatic isolation which later characterized our 
foreign policy, and, if they had done so our interests as a neutral 
would in any case have made it impossible for us to hold our- 
selves entirely aloof. One faction argued that we ought to go 
to the support of France because she had helped us in our time 
of trouble, because she stood for the principles of liberalism, 
and because we were bound to her by the treaties of 1778; 
the other defended the Neutrality Proclamation, justified the 
Jay Treaty, and tried to bring about a war with France in 1798. 
Public opinion on these issues was freely expressed in newspa- 
pers and pamphlets, in festival parades and mass meetings, and 
in the resolutions of the Democratic societies and other partisan 
organizations. 

France declared war against Austria on April 20, 1792; 
Prussia entered the conflict in the following June, and Great 
Britain was drawn in early in 1793. The first coalition was 
formed shortly afterwards. The French minister, Genet, ar- 
rived in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 8th of April, and at 
once began to enlist troops, fit out privateers, and take prize ves- 
sels into American ports for condemnation. On the 22nd of 
April President Washington issued his Proclamation of Neu- 
trality. 

The first important newspaper attack upon the proclamation 
was made by "Veritas" in the National Gazette for June 1, 1793. 
The President was challenged to justify his policy on the ground 
of "duty and interest." According to "Veritas," the proclama- 
tion abrogated the treaties already existing between the United 
States and France "from which we have long enjoyed impor- 
tant advantages;" but if this be the true construction, "how can 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 65 

the proclamation be considered as consistent either with our duty 
or interest? With our duty it cannot accord, so long as we pre- 
tend to any faith as a nation or remember with gratitude the 
circumstances under which our treaties with France were con- 
cluded and the generous exertions of that nation in the cause 
of American liberty. If it be the duty of a free nation to forget 
those friends to whom she is in a great measure indebted for a 
national existence ; to view with cold indifference the struggles 
of those very friends to support their own liberties against an 
host of despots; and in spite of the reciprocal ties of national 
treaties to treat an inveterate and cruel enemy with the same 
friendship as our best and most faithful ally — if such be the duty 
of Americans, as declared in the proclamation, then is that 
proclamation to be regarded as disgraceful to the American 
character." 

As regards the assertion that it was to Anierica's interest to 
maintain a strict neutrality, he says, "It never can be consistent 
with the interest of a nation basely to disregard its plighted 
faith. . . . It is by no means consistent with the interest of 
the United States to provoke the French nation to hostilities ; a 
consequence naturally to be expected from the violation of sol- 
emn treaties." 

Some of the advocates of neutrality had argued that there was 
no danger of the United States being drawn into a war with 
France, no matter how dishonorable our conduct towards her, 
"For," say they, "it will be for the interest of France that 
America should not be engaged in the war, but be left to furn- 
ish those supplies as a neutral nation which are so necessary to 
the sustenance of her army during the war. . . . These Solo- 
mons, however, may find themselves mistaken. France, though 
desirous of peace and friendship with us, is surely not insensible 
to injury, neither is she so abject as tamely to submit to an open 
violation of faith by any nation." 

A few days later, "Veritas" contributed another article on 
the same subject,^ in which he asked, "If a proclamation was 



^National Gazette, June 8, 1793. 



66 Smith College Studies in History 

justifiable and proper in 1793, was it not equally so in 1792 when 
several European Powers were actually engaged in a war? If 
so, why was it deferred till Great Britain became a party?" He 
went on to criticize what he considered the cowardly attitude of 
the government toward England. "For ten years has that 
haughty nation held possession of posts in our territory in open 
violation of treaty, as if we were tributary provinces." Whether 
the government had demanded these posts and been refused or 
not, the public had not been informed, but the writer was of the 
opinion that if the American people are kept in the dark much 
longer on this subject, they would "take the law into their own 
hands (as Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain boys did in 
1775), and wipe off the disgrace of the nation by driving the in- 
vaders from our country. . . Does not England's seizure of 
our vessels bound for France, though they carry no contraband, 
and the retention of the Western Posts serve to convince America 
of the hostile views of Great Britain ?"- 

During the most critical period of the Genet episode. Presi- 
dent Washington called upon the judges of the Supreme Court 
for advice in interpreting the French treaties of 1778. "Juba" 
wished to know why, if he had any doubts on the subject, he did 
not consult the representatives of the people in Congress. In 
answer to his own question, "Juba"'" says : "It is suspected that 
a certain great man who directs the political movements of the 
executive, though not the ofificer of the people, is a little timid for 
fear the present Congress should make him pass through a se- 
verer ordeal than he has hitherto undergone and that this is the 
true reason why the representatives of the people are not con- 
sulted upon this momentous occasion."^ This is very probable, 
he continues, considering the fact that the number of bank-direc- 



^ Jefiferson thought that William Irvine, a clerk in the Treasury, was 
the author of the "Veritas" letters, while Genet thought that Jefferson 
himself wrote them. Jefferson's Writings, vol. I, pp. 235 and 244. These 
letters, three in number, were answered in the National Gazette by "A 
Friend to Peace." 

^National Gazette. July 27, 1793. 

* This is one of many references to Hamilton as Washington's chief 
adviser. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 67 

tors, stockholders and stockjobbers is not so great in proportion 
to the whole body of Congress as they were at the last session. 

"The government," says he, "is in an uproar because the 
French have fitted out a brig in Philadelphia, •'' but appears to 
slumber over the British armaments that have been made here 
and the multiplied injuries and insults that our flag has sustained 
from the pirates under English colours." 

The strongest organized opposition to the policy of neutrality 
came from the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, an organiza- 
tion formed on the model of the Jacobin Club in Paris and com- 
posed exclusively of French sympathizers." On January 9, 1794, 
the Society passed the following resolutions : 

"3rd. Resolved that we view with inexpressible horror the 
cruel and unjust war carried on by the combined powers of 
Europe against the French Republic — that attached to the French 
nation (our only true and natural ally) by sentiments of the live- 
liest gratitude for the great and generous services she has ren- 
dered us, while we were struggling for our liberties and by that 
strong connection which arises from a similarity of government 
and of political principles, we cannot sit passive and forbear ex- 
pressing our anxious concern wdiile she is greatly contending 
against a World for the same rights which she assisted us to 
establish and that, exclusive of the sentiments so natural to 
every true American, the powerful motive of self-interest com- 
bines to connect us still closer to France, for when we see so 
many sovereigns having different interests and some of whom 
are natural enemies to each other, confederate against a single 
Nation with no other avowed object than that of changing her in- 
ternal government, we cannot believe that they are making war 



^ The Little Sarah, a vessel captured from the British and fitted out by 
Genet as a privateer in July, 1793. 

* The history of this Society has been treated briefly by J. B. McMaster, 
History of the People of the United States (New York, 1883-1914), vol. 
II, pp. 109-110, 175-178, 196, 206, and by C. D. Hazen, Contemporary Ameri- 
can Opinion of the French Revolution (Baltimore, 1897), pp. 188-209. 
For a description of the original manuscript minutes of the Society see 
below p. 158. For further history of the Society see below, chapter IV. 



68 Smith College Studies in History 

against that Nation solely, but against Liberty itself. . . It 
therefore behooves us, as we value our dear bought rights to give 
to a cause so just in itself and which we may so properly call 
our own, every countenance and support in our power, consis- 
tently with the laws of our country. 

"4th. Resolved that we ought to resist to the utmost of our 
power all attempts to alienate our affections from France, and 
detach us from her alliance and to connect us more intimately 
with Great Britain, that all persons who, directly or indirectly, 
promote this unnatural succession ought to be considered by 
every free American as enemies to republicanism and their coun- 
try. 

"6th. Resolved that the conduct of the maritime powers at 
war with the French republic in prohibiting the exportation of 
our produce to France and her colonies, in seizing our vessels 
laden with provisions for that country is a daring infringement 
of the established law of nations and ought to be resented with a 
proper spirit. 

"7th. Resolved that we conceive we ought in the same 
manner to resent the outrageous conduct of Great Britain in im- 
pressing our seamen, in seizing our vessels on the high seas and 
detaining them in their ports on the most frivolous pretenses, in 
stirring up against us the savage nations of Africa and America 
and in short, in carrying on against this country a covert and in- 
sidious warfare which evinces her fear of our power at the same 
time that it can leave us no doubt of her hatred and enmity. 

"9th. Resolved. . . that the proposition she [France] 
has lately made of entering into a new commercial treaty with us 
on a broad and liberal basis and placing us upon the same footing 
with her own citizens at home and in her colonies, is an additional 
proof of the warm attachment of the people of France for their 
American brethren, that such a Treaty cannot but prove highly 
beneficial to this country in securing to it in the French colonies, 
rich and abundant sources of trade and a constant and profitable 
market for our staple commodities. 

"11th. Resolved that it is the opinion of this Society that 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 69 

the agents of foreign powers acting in the name and under the 
responsibiHty of the governments by whom they are delegated, 
are responsible only to their own sovereigns for their official con- 
duct in the countries to which they may be sent. Impressed with 
this political truth, we find ourselves called upon highly to repro- 
bate all attempts that have been made and may be made by 
spreading false and calumnious reports, by indecent strictures 
and newspaper publications and by other as unwarrantable means 
to traduce and villi fy a foreign Minister, to excite suspicion 
against him in the minds of the people and a jealousy in their 
public officers, with a view to render his cause unpopular and his 
situation amongst us irksome and disagreeable and we cannot 
but see in such attempts, the efTects of a foreign influence acting 
in opposition to the Nation whom that Minister represents and 
endeavoring to make the good people of the United States sub- 
servient to such hostile designs. 

"13th. Resolved that the firm tone of our executive in de- 
manding from the British government a fulfillment of the treaty 
of peace deserves the approbation of every citizen who is inter- 
ested in the dignity, independence and welfare of our country."'^ 

A committee, consisting of Benjamin F. Bache, Peter S. 
Duponceau, and Michael Leib, was appointed to draft a set of 
resolutions expressing the views of the Society relative to the 
"present crisis of our National affairs." These resolutions, after 
amendment, were finally adopted, April 10, 1794, in the following 
form : 

"1. Resolved, as the opinion of this society, that unequiv- 
ocal evidence is now obtained of the liberticide intention of Great 
Britain, she having declared it through one of her satellites even 
to savages ; that the success of Freedom against Tyranny, the 
triumphs of our magnanimous French brethren over slaves, have 
been the means of once more guaranteeing the Independence of 
this country ; that their glorious example ought to animate us to 
every exertion to raise our prostrate character and every tie of 



' Mss. Minutes, Democratic Society, 1793-1794 (Pennsylvania Histori- 
cal Society Library, Philadelphia), pp. 31-37. 



70 Smith College Studies in History 

gratitude and interest should lead us to cement our connection 
with that Great Republic. 

"2. Resolved that the Proclamation of Neutrality by our Ex- 
ecutive, although we have every reason to believe it the offspring 
of the best motives, is not only a questionable constitutional act 
but has eventually proved impolitic and being falsely construed 
by Great Britain as a manifestation of a pusillanimous disposi- 
tion on our part, serves to explain the aggressions of that na- 
tion, and that experience urges us now to abandon a line of con- 
duct which has only fed the pride and provoked the insults of 
our unprincipled and implacable enemy. 

"4. Resolved that Great Britain has been waging war upon 
us in the most insidious and cowardly manner. . . Insidious, 
inasmuch as her orders to seize and condemn our property float- 
ing on the high seas under the sanction of the Law of Nations 
were transmitted directly and expeditiously to her commissioned 
pirates and at the same time carefully kept out of those channels 
of information by which we could have received intelligence of 
their unwarrantable intentions— insidious, inasmuch as they were 
so worded as to conceal their intentions by a studied ambiguity 
which should give their friends among us an opportunity, by 
disputing their import, to keep the public mind the longer in sus- 
pense. Cowardly, inasmuch as their wanton depredations have 
been exercised on property protected only by the Law of Na- 
tions. . . and at a time when our government was lulled into 
security by false assurances of friendship. 

"6. Resolved. . . . that the moment of national embar- 
rassment and decline is the most opportune to demand a fulfill- 
ment of national engagements and that this being the present 
state of Great Britain, it would be a dereliction of the means 
which Providence has put into our hands, not to avail ourselves 
of the present crisis to insist on a surrender of the western posts 
and a full indemnification for all the injuries which the United 
States have sustained from her. 

"8. Resolved that the progress of British influence in the 
United States has endangered our happiness and independence. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 71 

that it has operated to make us tributary to Great Britain and to 
engender systems and corruptions baneful to Liberty. 

"9. Resolved. . . . that we entertain the most flattering 
anticipation that the Sister Repubhcs of America and France will 
have an inseparable relation and attachment — that they will ever 
be the temple of Liberty, the residence of the Arts, Sciences, 
Liberality and Humanity, 'an Hercules in the extermination of 
every monster of unlawful domination.' "^ 

On February 20, 1794, the German Republican Society,*^ in a 
communication to the Democratic Society setting forth the need 
and advisability of a close affiliation between the two bodies 
whose ideals and objects were so similar, enclosed the following 
resolution for its concurrence : 

"Resolved that as republicans and friends to universal liberty, 
that this society views with concern, the attempts which are 
making to depress the French character in this country. That 
when we see men insidiously endeavoring to produce an abhor- 
rence of a principle because the actors have gone to imagined 
excess ; that when we see men who, under the guise of patriotism, 
enter into a defence, nay a panegyric upon the perfidious, insolent 
and tyrannical conduct of Great Britain, every freeman ought to 
express his abhorrence of such dark policy and declare that the 
true and unbiased American has different sympathies."^ ° 

The Democratic Society replied on March 6, that it heartily 
concurred in these resolutions and would gladly co-operate in any 
measures that would promote the public welfare. ^^ 

A Civic Feast was held May 1, 1794. to celebrate the victories 
of the democrats of France over the royalists and aristocrats. 
The German Republican Society was invited to take part in the 
festivities. About 800 people assembled at the country residence 
of one of the members of the Democratic Society where the cele- 



'Ibid., pp. 68-74. 

' This was an organization of liberal Pennsylvania Germans. The 
writer has sought in vain for further information than that contained in 
the text concerning the Society. 

^"American Daih Advertiser, March 15. 1794. 

''Ibid. 



72 Smith College Studies in History 

bration was held. Among those who attended were Governor 
Mifflin of Pennsylvania,^- the French Minister, Fauchet, various 
officers and citizens of the French Republic and Federal and 
State officials. The flags of the two republics decorated the seat 
of festivity. At the celebration the following toasts were drunk : 

"1. The Republic of France; one and indivisible. May her 
triumphs multiply until every day in the year be rendered a fes- 
tival in the calendar of Liberty and a fast in the calendar of 
courts. 

"2. The People of the United States. May each revolving 
year increase their detestation of every species of tyranny and 
their vigilance to secure the glorious inheritance acquired by their 
Revolution. 

"3. The Alliance between the Sister Republics of the United 
States and France. May their union be as incorporate as light 
and heat and their friendship as lasting as time. 

"4. The Great family of Mankind. May the distinction of 
nation and of language be lost in the association of freedom and 
of friendship till the inhabitants of the various sections of the 
Globe shall be distinguished only by their virtues and talents. 

"5. The extinction of Monarchy. May the next generation 
know kings only by the page of history and wonder that such 
monsters were ever permitted to exist." 

The following extemporaneous toasts were also offered : 

"1. May every free nation consider a public debt as a public 
curse, and may the man who would assert a contrary opinion be 
considered as an enemy to his country. 

"2. The dispersed friends of Liberty throughout the world. 
May France be the rallying point where they may collect their 
scattered forces and whence they may sally forth to the destruc- 
tion of all the tyrants of the earth. "^^ 

The most powerful defence of the neutrality programme 



" McMaster is of the opinion that "the real object of the Society . . . 
was to control the politics of Pennsylvania and to re-elect Governor 
Mifflin." History of the People of the United States, vol. II, p. 109. 

^^Pennsylvania Gazette, May 7, 1794. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 73 

came from the pen of Hamilton. His eight articles, signed 
"Pacificus," which appeared in the Gazette of the United States 
in the summer of 1793 were also published in pamphlet form.^'* 
It was his opinion that the real purpose of the attacks upon the 
Neutrality Proclamation in newspapers and pamphlets was not to 
bring about a free discussion of an important public measure, but 
to weaken the confidence of the people in their executive and 
thus prepare the way for a successful opposition to the govern- 
ment.^^ 

The objections to the Neutrality Proclamation, according to 
Hamilton, could be classified under four headings: (1) That 
the President had not the authority to issue the proclamation. 
(2) That it was contrary to our treaties with France. (3) That 
it was contrary to the feeling of gratitude we should have 
towards the French for the aid rendered us by that nation at the 
time of the American Revolution. (4) That it was untimely and 
unnecessary. And these objections he proceeds to answer. 

In order to judge the first of these objections intelligently, we 
must consider just what is the nature and purpose of a proclama- 
tion of neutrality. The true nature and design of such an act is 
to make it known to the powers at war and to the citizens of the 
country issuing the proclamation, that that country is at peace 
with the belligerent powers and not obligated by any treaties 
to become a party to the war as the ally of either side, and that 
conduct must be observed conformable to the above situation and 
strict neutrality maintained towards both sides. This and this 
only is the meaning of a Neutrality Proclamation. "It does not 
imply that the nation which makes the declaration will forbear 
to perform to any of the warring powers, any stipulations in 
treaties which can be performed without rendering it an associate 
or party in the war. It therefore does not imply in our case, that 
the United States will not make those distinctions between the 
present belligerent powers which are stipulated in the 7th and 
22nd articles of our treaty with France, because those distinctions 



See Hamilton's Works, vol. IV, pp. 432-489. 
Gazette of the United States, June 29, 1793. 



74 Smith College Studies in History 

are not incompatible with a state of neutrality; they will in no 
shape render the United States an associate or party in the war. 
This must be evident, .when it is considered that even to furn- 
ish determinate succours of a certain number of ships or troops 
to a powder at war, in consequence of antecedent treaties having 
no particular reference to the existing war, is not inconsistent 
with neutrality ; a position well established by the doctrines of 
writers and the practice of nations. But no special aids, suc- 
cours or favors having relation to war, not positively and pre- 
cisely stipulated by some treaty of the above description, can be 
afiforded to either party, without a breach of neutrality." 

This being the meaning of a proclamation of neutrality, did 
the President overstep the bounds of his constitutional authority 
in issuing it? It is an undisputed fact that the management of 
the foreign affairs of this country is vested in the government of 
the United States and that a proclamation of neutrality in the 
case of a nation which is at liberty to keep out of war and wishes 
to do so, is a very usual and proper measure. "Its main object 
and effect are to prevent the nation being immediately respon- 
sible for acts done by its citizens without the privity or con- 
nivance of the government, in contravention of the principles of 
neutrality." 

The next question is, what department of the government 
is the suitable one to act in case the "engagements of the nation 
permit and its interests require such a declaration." Obviously 
it must belong to the executive. "The legislative department is 
not the organ of intercourse between the United States and for- 
eign nations. It is charged neither with making nor interpreting 
treaties. . . . still less is it charged with enforcing the exe- 
cution and observance of those obligations and those duties." 
It is equally apparent that the act does not lie within the juris- 
diction of the judiciary department. "The province of that de- 
partment is to decide litigations in particular cases. It is indeed 
charged with the interpretation of treaties but it exercises this 
function only in the litigated cases." It must therefore rest with 
the executive to exercise this function if the occasion arises. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 75 

"It appears to be connected with that department in its various 
capacities — as the organ of intercourse between this nation and 
foreign nations, as the interpreter of the national treaties in 
those cases in which the judiciary is not competent, that is in the 
cases between government and government, as the power which 
is charged with the execution of the laws, of which treaties form 
a part, as that power which is charged with the command and 
application of the public force." 

The constitution provides that "the executive power shall be 
vested in a President of the United States" wnth three exceptions. 
The Senate shall participate in the appointment of ofBcers and the 
making of treaties, and the right to "declare war and grant let- 
ters of marque, and reprisal" shall be vested in the legislature. 
Considering that, for reasons already given, the issuing of a 
proclamation of neutrality is an executive act and since the gen- 
eral executive power of the Union is vested in the President, the 
conclusion is that he has acted within his constitutional authority 
in the step he has taken. "The President is censured for having 
declared the United States to be in a state of peace and neu- 
trality with regard to the powers at war ; because the right of 
changing that state and declaring a state of war belongs to the 
legislature." But as the participation of the Senate in the mak- 
ing of treaties and the power of the legislature to declare war are 
exceptions to the general principle that the executive authority 
is vested in the President, they should be strictly interpreted and 
not be extended any further than necessary for their execution. 

"While, therefore, the legislature can alone declare war, can 
alone actually transfer the nation from a state of peace to a state 
of war, it belongs to the executive power to do whatever else the 
laws of nations, co-operating with the treaties of the country, 
enjoin in the intercourse of the United States with foreign 
powers. In this distribution of powers, the wisdom of our con- 
stitution is manifest. It is the province and duty of the executive 
to preserve to the nation the blessings of peace. The legislature 
alone can interrupt those blessings by placing the nation in a 
state of war." 



76 Smith College Studies in History 

That clause in the constitution which instructs the President 
to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" gives him 
competent authority to issue a proclamation of neutrality. The 
President is the constitutional executor of the laws. Treaties 
and the laws of nations form a part of the law of the land. He 
who is to execute the laws must first judge for himself of their 
meaning. It rested with the President to judge whether there 
was anything in the laws of nations or our treaties incompatible 
with neutrality. "Having judged that there was not, he had a 
right and, if in his opinion the interests of the nation required it, 
it was his duty as executor of the laws to proclaim the neutrality 
of the nation, to exhort all persons to observe it and to warn them 
of the penalties which would attend its non-observance." 

The proclamation has been represented by some as a newly 
enacted law. This is incorrect. It only makes known a fact re- 
garding the existing state of the nation, instructs the citizens 
what laws previously established demand of them and warns 
them of the penalties for violation. 

In another article^" Hamilton discusses the assertion so fre- 
quently made by the friends of France that a sense of gratitude 
if nothing else should urge us to help her. This he denies. As 
a result of the war between England and France which ended in 
1763, France suffered very severe losses and humiliating defeats. 
Her only desire from that time on was to destroy the ascendancy 
which England had won in the affairs of Europe and repair the 
wounds inflicted upon her pride. The American Revolution of- 
fered the opportunity to fulfill that desire. The possibilities of 
that situation early attracted the cautious notice of France. "As 
far as countenance and aid may be presumed to have been given 
prior to the epoch of the acknowledgement of our independence, 
it will be no unkind derogation to assert that they were marked 
neither with liberality nor with vigour, that they wore the ap- 
pearance rather of a desire to keep alive disturbances, which 
would embarrass a rival power, than of a serious design to as- 



'Ibid., July 13, 1793. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 17 

sist a revolution or a serious expectation that it would be ef- 
fected." The victory at Saratoga, which was the turning point 
of the war and which demonstrated our abihty to carry to a suc- 
cessful issue our struggle for independence, produced the treaties 
of alliance and commerce. "It is impossible to see in all this 
anything more than the conduct of a rival nation embracing a 
most promising opportunity to repress the pride and diminish 
the dangerous power of its rival; by seconding a successful resis- 
tance to its authority and by lopping ofif a valuable portion of 
its dominions. The dismemberment of this country from Great 
Britain was an obvious and a very important interest of France. 
It cannot be doubted that it was the determining motive and an 
adequate compensation for the assistance afforded us. . 
Aid and co-operation, founded upon a great interest, pursued and 
obtained by the party affording them, is not a proper stock upon 
which to engraft that enthusiastic gratitude, which is claimed 
from us by those who love France more than the United 
States." 

While neither the motives which prompted France to give us 
aid nor the amount of this aid can be considered sufficient 
grounds for the great gratitude which so many declare we should 
feel for that country, yet we must admit that in the manner in 
which the assistance was given there is ample cause for our 
esteem and friendship. France did not try to take advantage 
of our difffcult situation to force from us any humiliating con- 
cessions or impose any hard terms as the price for her aid. 
While this course of procedure was dictated by policy alone, still 
it was an honorable and generous one and is worthy of our 
deepest gratitude. 

The question has arisen, to whom do we owe our gratitude, 
to the unfortunate French King by whom the assistance was 
given or to the nation whose agent he was ? The arguments sup- 
porting the latter are as follows : Louis XVI was only the con- 
stitutional agent of the French people. He acted in their behalf 
and it was with "their money and their blood he supported our 



78 Smith College Studies in History 

cause. 'Tis to them, therefore, not to him, that our obhgations 
are due." 

This reasoning, Hamilton characterizes as "ingenious but not 
founded in nature or fact." To be sure the King was merely 
the constitutional agent of the nation but at the time he had 
the sole power of managing its affairs. It rested with him to 
assist us or not, without consulting the nation, and he did help 
us without such consultation. "His will alone was active, that 
of the nation passive. If there was any kindness in the decision 
demanding a return of kindness from us, it was the kindness of 
Louis XVI." The individual good wishes of the citizens of 
France cannot be the basis for national gratitude on our part as 
the French people were not responsible for the services rendered 
us as a nation. "They can only call for a reciprocation of good 
wishes. They cannot form the basis of public obligations."^''' 

It must be admitted that the French people took a keen inter- 
est in the American cause, but who can say how much of it was 
due to antipathy towards England and how much to their sym- 
pathy for our aspirations ? "It is certain that the love of liberty 
was not a national sentiment in France, when a zeal for our cause 
first appeared among that people. There is reason to believe, 
too, that the attachment to our cause, which ultimately became 
very extensive, if not general, did not originate with the mass of 
the French people. It began with the circle more immediately 
connected with the Government and was thence diffused through 
the nation." 

Furthermore, when urging the friendly disposition of the 
French people towards our cause as a reason for our gratitude 
towards them, we must not forget that this friendly feeling was 
not confined to the French. It was shared by the people of the 
United Provinces who gave us valuable pecuniary aid and finally 
were drawn into the war upon our side. Here it is worthy of 
note that the movement began with the community and not with 
the government, as in France, the government finally being im- 



" Ibid., July 17, 1793. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 79 

plicated through the pressure of pubHc opinion. Our cause had 
its friends in other countries, even in those with which we were 
at war. "It may be said to have been a popular cause among 
mankind, conciliating the countenances of Princes and the af- 
fection of nations." 

"The disposition of the individual citizens of France can 
therefore in no sense be urged as constituting a peculiar claim to 
our gratitude. As far as there is foundation for it, it must be 
referred to the services rendered to us and in the first instance 
to the unfortunate monarch that rendered them. This is the con- 
clusion of nature and reason. "^^ 

Jefferson became so alarmed at the great influence which the 
letters of "Pacificus" were exerting that he wrote to Madison 
on July 7, 1793, as follows : "Nobody answers him and his doc- 
trines wall therefore be taken for confessed. For God's sake, my 
dear Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies and 
cut him to pieces in the face of the public. There is nobody 
else, who can and will enter the lists against him."i'' Acting 
upon Jefferson's suggestion, Madison wrote five letters under 
the name of "Helvidius," which appeared first in the Gazette 
of the United States (August 24 to September 18), but were 
later published as a pamphlet.-*^ These letters attracted much 
attention as everyone knew who the real author was. Madison's 
arguments were largely directed against Hamilton's first letter 
which stated his idea of the powers of the executive. 

The merchants and traders of Philadelphia were very de- 
sirous that the neutrality of the country should be strictly ob- 
served. In July, 1793, they held a large meeting at the Coffee 
House to consider certain actions tending toward a breach of 
the President's proclamation. In the course of the discussion, 
proof was presented that the Little Sarah had been armed in 
Philadelphia and sent out against the powers at war with France. 



''Ibid. 

" Jefferson's Writings, vol. VI, p. 338. 

*" "Helvidius", Letters writttcn in reply to "Pacificus" on the Presi- 
dent's Proclamation of Neutrality. Philadelphia, 1793. 



80 Smith College Studies in History 

A committee was appointed to call upon the Governor of the 
state and the heads of the departments in the federal govern- 
ment, to ascertain what steps had been taken to check "a proce- 
dure so alarming to the interests and honor of the United States." 
Governor Mifflin assured the committee that everything was be- 
ing done and would continue to be done to secure a strict ad- 
herence to the President's proclamation.-^ 

The policy of neutrality was supported in various short ar- 
ticles, letters, and editorials. For example, an anonymous writer 
in the American Daily Advertiser, for January 6, 1794, says : 
"There can be little doubt in the mind of any unprejudiced cit- 
izen taking into consideration recent communications, but that 
the United States would at this moment have been experiencing 
all the horrors of war, had not the Proclamation of Neutrality 
been issued at the crisis at which it was promulgated." "Henry," 
writing in the same journal,-- argues that while credit must be 
given to the wise and cautious conduct of the government by 
which we were "extricated from the snares that French emis- 
saries reinforced by anti-federal faction had spread for our 
peace, nevertheless something is due to good fortune. The en- 
thusiasm for the French in Philadelphia and in some other 
sea-ports was blind and violent enough to have hurried our coun- 
try into the war, if those who undertook to make a hack of our 
folly had not overdriven it. They hurried even those who 
seemed to be willing to run head foremost into the war quite out 
of breath. Had the business of privateering been conducted with 
more skill and address, our people would have been engaged in 
very great numbers in making a piratical war upon England and 
our country would have been involved in it beyond the power of 
retreating. Luckily, however, the French emissaries made a 
mistake in supposing our people more crazy than they really were 
and in consequence, they came to their senses. The whole coun- 
try cried out against privateering — the President found a solid 
support and the hopes of the war-party seemed to be destroyed." 



Gazette of the United States, July 10, 1793. 
January 17, 1794. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 81 

But, because Congress has approved of the Proclamation and 
other measures to preserve neutrahty, we need not feel perfectly- 
easy about the peace of America. "The danger is not over. 
Our citizens are not to be led into the pit with their eyes open; 
nevertheless they may be led into it. New schemes are to be 
tried ; the project is now to trick the country into the war." "Hen- 
ry" believed that the people of the country ought to be neutral in 
thought as well as in action. "Is it prudent, manly or even hon- 
est," he asks, "after the declaration of an impartial neutrality on 
our part, to fill every newspaper and every circle of company 
with enthusiastic professions of attachment and even devoted- 
ness to the French cause, accompanied with the most provoking 
expressions of scorn and hatred of the English? There is as 
much true dignity for a neutral nation to forbear taking a side 

as to intermeddle with the quarrel of others Such 

has been the complexion of several of our newspapers, which are 
not only a disgrace to our country but contribute all they can to 
involve it in the war." 

An interesting article entitled "Wholesome Refreshment for 
the Memory" appeared in Porciip'uie's Gazette on April 7, 1797, 
four years after Washington issued his Proclamation of Neu- 
trality. The writer recalls to mind the violent opposition which 
the proclamation aroused among the heated advocates of war 
and the reprobation cast upon the President by "many a tedious 
essayist, whose projects of personal aggrandizement were blasted 
by a measure as just as it was reasonable." The propriety of 
the proclamation has been so securely established and its con- 
stitutionality so ably defended that no one now has any doubt of 
it. "That it was our duty as well as interest to be neutral has 
been clearly evinced by the result, we have enjoyed the fruits of 
it during the course of a war which has half ruined the fairest 
portion of Europe, and the sacrifices we have sustained, sacri- 
fices inseparable from a state of neutrality, have been much 
more than countervailed by the advantages drawn from our situa- 
tion." 



82 Smith College Studies in History 

2. The Jay Treaty 

The Jay Treaty, designed to settle the long-standing difficul- 
ties between England and the United States, was signed No- 
vember 19, 1794, and was submitted by President Washington 
to the Senate for ratification on June 8, 1795. An appropriation 
of money being involved, the House of Representatives, also had 
to be consulted. The opposition in both houses was very bitter, 
but the treaty was finally ratified, June 24, 1795; and the legis- 
lation necessary to put it into operation was passed on May 6, 
1796. 

Of the many attacks upon the treaty, a series of letters by 
an anonymous writer who signed himself "Franklin," and which 
appeared in the Independent Gazcttecr,^^ were perhaps the most 
outspoken and extravagant in their criticisms. They called forth 
an extended and vigorous reply from William Cobbett in a 
pamphlet entitled A Little Plain English.-^ The "Letters of 
Franklin," Cobbett declared, were "a string of philippics against 
Great Britain and the Executive of the United States." They 
did not form a regular series in which the subject was treated in 
continuation ; the first one seemed rather to be "the overflowings 
of passion bordering on insanity, and each succeeding one the 
fruit of a relapse." And of the author, he said : "Far be it 
from me to pretend to a rivalship with this fawning mob orator, 
and I would not for the world make one convert from his tat- 
tered flock; unenvied I leave him to the plaudits of his cajoled 
'fellow-citizens and the fraternal hugs of your insidious friends 
and allies.' " 

"Franklin" had opposed three main objections to the Treaty : 
(1) to conclude any commercial treaty with Great Brit- 
ain was "a step at once unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous and dis- 
honorable ;" (2) the terms were "disadvantageous, humiliating. 



^^ These letters, 14 in number, appeared between the dates March 11 
and June 10, 1795. Several letters signed "Philo Franklin" were pub- 
lished at this time in the same paper, in support of the position taken by 
"Franklin." 

'* Philadelphia, 1795. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 83 

and disgraceful to the United States;" and (3) even if the terms 
had been satisfactory, the President had conducted himself in a 
high-handed manner in negotiating the treaty ; and for this he 
should be impeached. "Franklin" had even gone on to set forth 
five offences which in his belief demanded the impeachment of the 
President : ( 1 ) he had appointed Jay as envoy extraordinary, 
contrary to the Constitution; (2) he had appointed an envoy 
extraordinary on this occasion contrary to the judgment of the 
House of Representatives and of the Democratic Society; (3) 
he had failed to take the Senate into his confidence previous to 
Jay's departure for Europe ; (4) he had not taken the public 
into his confidence; and (5) he had avoided a nev^ treaty with 
France while advocating one with England. 

These objections Cobbett proceeded to demolish with char- 
acteristic vigor. To "Franklin's" assertion that commercial 
treaties were "an artificial means to gain a natural end," he re- 
plied that he would allow commercial treaties to be unneces- 
sary "when the scheme of opening all the ports in the world 
to all the vessels in the world" had been put in execution with 
success. And to "Franklin's" objection to a treaty with England 
because she was "famed for perfidy and double dealing," he did 
not scruple to reply that this was all the more reason for binding 
her with written articles. "Franklin" had advocated a treaty 
with France. But, said Cobbett, "Your commerce with France, 
even in the fairest days of her prosperity, never amounted to 
more than one-fifth of your commerce with Great Britain ;" 
and, moreover, if, as "Franklin" had said, France was "the most 
magnanimous, generous, just, honorable, rich, and powerful na- 
tion on earth," what was the use of a treaty to bind her? "Frank- 
lin" had declared treaties to be "impolitic" because they lead to 
war. But Cobbett thought it "rather surprising to hear 'Franklin' 
object to them on that account," when one-third of his argument 
was taken up with invectives against the President for not con- 
cluding a treaty with France, and the direct object of which 
was to draw the United States into the European war on the side 
of France. "Franklin" had argued that to conclude a treaty of 



84 Smith College Studies in History 

commerce with Great Britain was "dangerous," because it would 
be forming "a connection with a monarch," and the introduction 
of "the fashions, forms and precedents of monarchical govern- 
ment" had ever accelerated the destruction of republics. But, 
said Cobbett, "can the people who have been so careful in pre- 
venting their future rulers from depriving them of the benefit of 
the laws of England, who look upon the being governed by those 
laws as the most inestimable of their rights, be afraid of intro- 
ducing among them the fashions, forms and precedents of Eng- 
land?-^ And if, as "Franklin" had said, the United States 
should make no treaties with any nation whose customs and 
forms were different from its own, that was all the more reason 
why an alliance should be made with England rather than with 
France. 

"Franklin" had opined that England planned to conquer the 
United States, and desired a treaty to secure thereby a footing 
in this country, in order to carry through her ambitious schemes ; 
but the surest of all guarantees that Great Britain would never at- 
tempt anything against American independence was in fact her 
own interest. And as to "Franklin's" forebodings that a treaty 
made with England, the inveterate enemy of France, would in- 
evitably arouse the latter's just and dangerous resentment, Cob- 
bett could only say that if the United States entertained such 
fears they were "no more than mere colonies of France," and 
their boasted revolution was "no more than a change of mas- 
ters." "Franklin" had asserted that it was "dishonorable" even 
to treat with England ; her king was "a tyrant that had invaded 
our territory and carried on war against us." But here Cobbett 
thought he had made a "small mistake" : "at the time the King 
of England invaded 'your' territory, it was his territory and you 
his 'loving subjects,' at least you all declared so." But much 
more pertinently he inquired how long it had been "a principle 
in politics that a nation who has done an injury to another is 



^ Cobbett here refers to the Declaration of Rights incorporated in the 
Constitution of Pennsylvania. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 85 

never after to be treated on a friendly footing." Was this a 
maxim, he inquired, of any other state in the world? 

Cobbett then turned to "FrankHn's" specific objection to the 
terms of the treaty, viz. : that the western posts had been made 
the price of a commercial treaty, that no provision had been 
made for indemnity to merchants, that the French had been sac- 
rificed to the British, and that all the essential interests of the 
United States had been abandoned. These charges Cobbett 
flatly declared to be untrue. "Franklin" had published his let- 
ters before the contents of the Jay Treaty had been made public; 
and such premature objections directed at what were only sup- 
posed to be the terms of the treaty could of necessity not be 
very serious. 

Cobbett got on rather firmer ground when he came to deal 
with "Frankhn's" argument in support of the extraordinary de- 
mand for the impeachment of the President. The latter had 
contended that the appointment of Chief Justice Jay as an en- 
voy extraordinary was a violation of the constitution, making the 
will of the executive superior to the will of the people ; that 
the appointee would combine in a single person, both legislative 
and judicial functions; and that it was the duty of a chief jus- 
tice to expound and apply treaties, not to negotiate them. To 
these specious arguments Cobbett replied by pointing out that 
there was no article in the constitution forbidding a chief justice 
from being sent as an envoy extraordinary, that the drawing up 
of a treaty was not a legislative act, and that it obviously did 
not make a person less capable of expounding a law to have 
taken part in framing it. And as for "Franklin's" claim that the 
appointment of Jay had been made in opposition to the wishes of 
a respectable minority of the House of Representatives, under 
the constitution that was purely a matter which concerned the 
President and the Senate. 

"Franklin's" amazing statement that the President should be 
impeached because the appointment of Jay was contrary to the 
wishes of the Democratic Society aroused Cobbett to a sar- 
castic outburst to which it is impossible to do justice except by 



86 Smith College Studies in History 

quoting in extenso : "How it came into the head of 'FrankHn,' " 
he declared, "to introduce his club on this occasion, it is not 
easy to imagine. He does not pretend, I hope, that there is some- 
thing unconstitutional here also? The constitution says that the 
President shall take the advice of the Senate but it is totally 
silent with respect to the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania. 
Mighty 'alarming' indeed that the President should not consult 
this club of butchers, tinkers, broken huksters and transatlantic 
traitors ! Had he wanted a fellow to fell an ox or mend a kettle, 
to bilk his creditors or blow up an insurrection, he would have 
done well to address himself to the Democratic Society of Penn- 
sylvania for advice ; but to ask their advice in the appointment 
of an Envoy Extraordinary would have been as preposterous 
as consulting the devil in the choice of a minister of the Gospel." 
As for the President's failure to take the Senate into his con- 
fidence, that body did not know of the errand and the person to 
be sent. To be sure, it was not told of the particular objects to 
be accomplished ; but this was not necessary, either from a "con- 
stitutional or prudential point of view." The power of the Sen- 
ate extended only to the accepting or rejecting the treaties ne- 
gotiated by the President. The Senate should be consulted in 
the making of treaties, but not in opening negotiations ; and 
Franklin's interpretation of the constitution as meaning that no 
negotiations for a treaty could be entered into without the ad- 
vice and consent of the Senate was a strained and impossible 
one. And as for "Franklin's" conviction that "republics should 
have no secrets," and his complaint that the President had failed 
to take the public into his confidence, Cobbett replied that if the 
people had no right to prevent a treaty going into effect, they 
could gain no possible advantage from having it communicated 
to them previous to its ratification. "What satisfaction could 
they derive," he asked, "from being tantalized with a view of 
dangers that they could not avoid?" And finally, "Franklin's" 
demand that the President be impeached because he had refused 
a French treaty while eagerly pursuing one with England was 
almost too trivial to merit consideration ; for the constitution 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 87 

clearly left the treaty-making power in the hands of the Presi- 
dent. He might make or avoid treaties according to his own 
judgment. And moreover, the object of France was to plunge 
the United States into war. There was no likeness whatever 
between the English treaty and the one proposed by Genet. 

Not only did the Jay Treaty encounter bitter criticism in the 
public press ; it also aroused such hostility as to lead to a public 
demonstration. On July 25, 1795, a large mass-meeting of the 
citizens of Philadelphia was held in the State-house yard and a 
memorial was drawn up to send to the President protesting 
against the Jay Treaty. The objections set forth in the me- 
morial were as follows : 

1. It does not provide for a fair and effectual settlement of 
the differences existing between the United States and Great 
Britain, since it postpones the surrender and gives no compensa- 
tion for the detention of the Western Posts ; since it cedes, with- 
out any equivalent, an indefinite extent of territory to settlers 
under British titles within the precincts and jurisdiction of those 
posts ; since it waives a just claim for the value of the negroes 
carried off at the close of the war in violation of a contract ; since 
it renders the securing of an indemnity for the recent spoliations 
committed on the commerce of the United States an "equivocal, 
expensive, tedious and uncertain process." 

2. By the Treaty, the federal government agrees to re- 
straints on xA.merican trade and navigation, internal as well as 
external, which include no principle of real reciprocity and are 
"inconsistent with the rights and destructive to the interests of 
an independent nation ;" because they obstruct intercourse with 
the West Indies, India, and the American Lakes by means of 
navigable rivers belonging to the English ; because in many cases 
they "circumscribe the navigation of the United States to a par- 
ticular voyage;" and because some of our staple goods (exempted 
by treaties with France, Holland, Prussia and Sweden) are made 
liable to confiscation as contraband and others (exempted by the 
law of nations) are made liable to seizure upon payment of an 
arbitrary price, on the charge that the articles are useful to the 
enemies of Great Britain. 



88 Smith College Studies in History 

3. The Treaty is ruinous to the domestic independence and 
prosperity of the United States, since it admits aliens "to per- 
manent and transmissible rights of property peculiarly belonging 
to a citizen," and since "it enables England to draw a dangerous 
line around the territory of the Union by her fleet on the At- 
lantic and by her settlements from Nova Scotia to the mouth 
of the Mississippi." 

4. The Treaty violates the "rights of friendship, gratitude 
and alliance which the republic of France may justly claim from 
the United States ;" it is not consistent with certain articles of 
the American Treaty with France ; and it gives England, "cer- 
tain, high, dangerous and exclusive privileges. "^"^ 

Washington, replying to this memorial on July 28, 1795, 
gave to the citizens of Philadelphia the same answer which he 
had given to a meeting of the Select-men of Boston. He said 
that his one and only object was the welfare of the country 
which in his opinion would be best promoted by such a Treaty. ^^ 

Somewhat later, the merchants and traders of Philadelphia 
presented an address to the President in which they expressed 
their approbation of the treaty.-''' The address stated that the 
subscribers had had such confidence in the wisdom, integrity and 
patriotism of the federal government that they had refrained 
from giving their views on the treaty pending between England 
and the United States, although as merchants and traders they 
were more vitally concerned than any other class, both because of 
the indemnity stipulated in it for past losses and because of the 
security it would give to the property used by the merchants of 
the United States in their foreign commerce. But as other 
citizens had expressed views on the matter, ^^ and since they 



^^ Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation bettvccn his Britannic 
Majesty and the United States of America. Appendix, Philadelphia, 1795. 

^'Ibid. 

'* Address of a Number of Citizens of Philadelphia to the President of 
United States, in The American Remembrance, Philadelphia, 1795. 

^° The reference is the to the above mentioned memorial submitted by 
the citizens of Philadelphia. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 89 

feared lest their silence be construed into an acquiescence in 
those opinions, they deemed it their duty pubHcly to avow their 
approbation of the conduct of the Senate of the United States, 
believing that a different conduct respecting the treaty would 
have subjected them to the eminent hazard of war with all its 
concomitant evils. And more especially were they gratified be- 
cause provision was made for the establishment of public and 
private credit, which would promote a continuance of peace and 
the further improvement of the country. These were advantages 
which, in their opinion, greatly outweighed all objections to the 
treaty. The address was signed by a large number of Philadel- 
phia's merchants and tradesmen. The President, in reply, ex- 
pressed his great appreciation of their support. ^*^ 

Cobbett, in an article in Porcupine's Gazette, February 28, 
1798, speaks with scorn of the opposition of the French faction 
to the Jay Treaty. ''All the evils arising from whatever cause 
and even the chastisements from the hand of the Almighty have 
been all attributed to the British Treaty." And he sums up its 
benefits as follows, "this is the instrument that has saved Amer- 
ica, that has procured a surrender of the Western Posts, that 
has retained British capital in the country, that has guarded its 
commerce in many instances against the ravages of the horde 
of French pirates, and that has restored and will restore to the 
merchants some millions of dollars while the only thing that 
Britain has obtained in return is the payment of debts justly 
due to her subjects and which ought to have been discharged 
fifteen years ago." The Treaty has fulfilled our most sanguine 
hopes. The French faction maintained that its terms would 
never be carried out, but time has proved their predictions false. 
The writer submits a report showing that eighty-three vessels 
have been restored and 55,000 pounds sterling ($250,000.) have 
been recovered by merchants and traders of America in accord- 
ance with a stipulation in this treaty. 



** President's Reply, Ibid. 



90 Smith College Studies in History 

J. Troubles With France 

The Jay Treaty disturbed the friendly relations which had 
previously existed between the United States and France and 
ultimately led to a breach of diplomatic intercourse. In 1797, 
President Adams appointed John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry, and 
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney special commissioners to proceed 
to France and make overtures for a peaceful settlement. The 
French government refused to receive the commissioners and 
apparently sanctioned a scheme of blackmail, carried on by cer- 
tain individuals who were referred to in the diplomatic records 
as X, Y and Z. The publication of the X Y Z correspondence 
strengthened the anti-French party in the United States, and ac- 
tive preparations were made for war. Adams sent a new min- 
ister to France, however, and a treaty was finally concluded with 
Napoleon, September 30, ISOO.^^ 

These long and irregular negotiations between the United 
States and France gave rise to extended comment and debate in 
the press of Philadelphia. An anonymous writer in the Aitrora^^ 
was very favorable to France, and ascribed the failure of the 
American Commissioners to the hostile attitude which the ad- 
ministration had shown towards the French Republic during the 
course of the war. This hostility had inspired distrust and Mr. 
Pickering's "insulting manifesto"^^ had turned that distrust into 
open enmity. The obloquy which the President had cast upon 
the French in his speech at the opening of Congress had only 
aggravated the situation. "A weak and wicked" administration 
had sacrificed the people of this country to the views and ambi- 
tions of England. "The French have been injured," he con- 
tinued, "by the arbitrary and forced construction given to our 
treaties with them, by which their prizes have been excluded from 
our ports and the ships of war of their enemies admitted ; they 

^^ For further discussion of the X Y Z affair, and the special litera- 
ture of the subject, see C. R. Fish, History of American Diplomacv (New 
York, 1915), pp. 126-139. 

=" January 12, 1798. 

^January 27, 1798. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 91 

have been injured by our abandonment of the law of neutrahty 
after we had proclaimed it; they have been injured by various 
provisions in the British Treaty." 

"Fiat Justitia,"^'* writing in the same paper, characterized the 
conduct of the administration towards France as a "system of hy- 
pocrisy and treachery." Mr. Jefferson, when Secretary of State, 
in a letter to Pinckney, the American Minister to England, had 
laid down this principle: "If we permit corn to be sent to Great 
Britain and her friends, we are equally bound to permit it to 
France. To restrain it would be a partiality which might lead 
to war with France." But by our treaty with Great Britain we 
excluded provisions from France by granting to England the 
right to seize our provision vessels and carry them into her ports 
on paying a certain sum to the owners. This, therefore, was a 
ground for war. 

Another correspondent of the Aurora^° was of the opinion 
that peace had never been so necessary or valuable to the United 
States as it then was. If we were to enter the European war, we 
would be subject to great expense and much confusion. The 
Spaniards and Indians, led by the French in Louisiana, would 
cause us incalculable expenditures and loss of property in the 
southwest, aided, as they doubtless would be, by the Indians 
of the west and northwest who were eager for revenge. "All 
our frontiers from Lake Erie to the 31st degree of latitude would 
again require to be defended by much blood and treasure ; and 
the conciliation, instruction, and civilization of the Indians so 
happily begun, would be stopped at once." The efifect of war 
upon our commerce would also be disastrous as we should lose 
the markets for most of our exports. The expense of arming 
our vessels in order to protect their cargoes would be greatly 
increased ; and the loss of freight, necessary to make room for 
guns, ammunition, and defenders, the great advance in seamen's 



" The reference is to a public letter addressed by the Secretary of War 
to Mr. Pinckney on January 16, 1797, while the latter was acting as the 
President's special commissioner to France. McMaster, History of the 
People of the United States, vol. II, p. 313. 

^ March 14, 1798. 



92 Smith College Studies in History 

wages and insurance rates, all would be considerable. The 
large revenues of 1795, 1796, and 1797 would be greatly cur- 
tailed at once ; and more excises, stamp duties, and land taxes 
would have to be levied at a time when goods offered for sale 
would fall in price and imports would rise in price. Our pubHc 
funds, bank stock, and insurance shares would fall in value. Our 
specie would either go abroad or be hoarded by the timid, and 
paper would greatly increase in circulation. Immigration of 
people of business and property from Europe would cease, rents 
and houses would diminish in value, and property in this country 
would suffer a very great depression. Foreigners already en- 
gaged in business here would withdraw, taking their wealth with 
them. 

But if we remained at peace, and the destructive war between 
England and France continued another year, new investments 
would be made in this country, as shown by the steady price of 
our stocks and bonds at this critical time. "The true and great 
c^uestion of the present day," he concluded, "is whether we shall 
engage in the most wild and expensive war ever known, nay in a 
ruinous war, for temporary, limited, and questionable commercial 
advantages. . . Let us rely upon our distance from Europe 
as a promising security against actual invasion, and let us believe 
that if such a measure were to be attempted, the justice of a 
war to defend our homes would render the people of the United 
States one irresistible phalanx to defend the best of countries and 
existing constitutions." 

The following article appeared in Carey's United States Re- 
corder for July 3, 1798: "To real Americans of every political 
creed, we apprehend the following important state-paper [Dec- 
laration of Independence] cannot be uninteresting on the coming 
great national festival. And to both [Federalists and Republi- 
cans] it ought to serve as a beacon to warn America from draw- 
ing closer the bonds of connection with that tyrant whose mani- 
fold aggressions laid the foundations of such a series of war, 
misery, and ruin as we ardently pray that these states may never 
more experience." 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 93 

The most vigorous of the anti-French articles and letters 
were those published in Porcupine's Gazette, many of them com- 
ing from the pen of Cobbett himself. In an article entitled "War 
and an Alliance with Great Britain or a Polite Welcome to Gen- 
eral Embargo, "3*^ Cobbett attacked the statement made by the 
editor of the New York Gazette that an embargo was "the only 
resource of the country." Cobbett called this "the most stupid 
and degrading notion that ever entered a sans-culotte brain. 
No nation is worthy of the epithet independent, which cannot, 
either by its own forces or by means of auxiliaries or alliances, 
enforce its rights or avenge the infringement of them. Without 
this the name of independence is far worse than nothing, it is a 
delusion and a curse." 

Every merchant has the right to expect and demand of the 
Government protection in his lawful trade. But what protection 
does a government afiford which fights with an embargo? In 
peace times he pays a heavy duty on all goods that pass through 
his hands. When war comes, justice demands that he be given 
the protection he has so long been paying for, but all he receives 
is the suspension of his trade: "Under its paternal shelter, he 
has the comfort to see his vessels rotting at his wharves, while 
his purse, or his person is harassed with militia laws for the 
defence of whatever is lucky enough to belong to the proprietors 
of the soil." As to the destructive effects of an embargo, "A 
single year of this gallant species of warfare would see the 
United States without a sailor and almost without a ship. The 
tars would not stay here to starve for 'liberty's sake' ; the mer- 
chants would sell their vessels to foreigners whose governments 
are able and willing to protect them in the use of them; and 
the farmers might prowl about in rags over their uncultivated 
fields." 

Of the two alternatives, war or embargo, Cobbett believes 
that war with France is absolutely necessary, and that an offen- 
sive and defensive alliance with Great Britain will inevitably fol- 



^ Porcupine's Gazette, Januarj' 25, 1798. 



94 Smith College Studies in History 

low. In the first place what could America, backed by the in- 
vincible fleets of Great Britain, possibly lose in a contest with 
France? The navy would be able to defend our seaports and 
afford a convoy to American ships engaged in trade. The trade 
with France would be cut off, but this trade is of no value to 
America. The French have no manufactures and, if they had, 
the people of this country would not use them. Of late years, 
France has been, to be sure, a considerable market for American 
produce, but for the millions worth of goods which have gone 
to her ports, she has not, upon an average, paid more than the 
freight. "Almost every merchant that has failed (and the num- 
ber is awful) was a trader to France, or her colonies and all 
the distress that now weighs down the country is to be ascribed 
to this destructive cause." Of foreign capital invested in banks 
or employed in trade, the part that belongs to Frenchmen is con- 
temptible indeed. But it is said that "the friendship of the 
sister republic" would be lost by war. "This is the mighty loss ; 
the friendship of a nation who has trampled you under her feet 
and now aims at the destruction of your government." Now, on 
the other hand, what is to be gained by a war? The immediate 
effect would be an unobstructed passage over the ocean without 
fear of seizure or even of examination. Commerce would revive, 
the confidence of commercial men would be re-established, and 
the spirit of enterprise renewed. American seamen would no 
longer be seized, shot at, and flogged within sight of their own 
shores. 

Louisiana might be secured, and "thus would the States be 
completely rid of the most alarming danger that ever menaced 
them; and which, if it be not soon removed, must and will in a 
few years, effect their disunion and destruction." But, most im- 
portant of all, an alliance with Great Britain would destroy the 
French faction in this country. "It is my sincere opinion that 
they have formed the diabolical plan of revolutionizing (to use 
one of their execrable terms), the whole continent of America. 
They have their agents and partizans without number and, very 
often, where we do not imagine. . . . They have explored 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 95 

the country to its utmost boundaries and its inmost recesses and 
have left a partisan on every spot, ready to preach up the holy 
right of insurrection. . . This dreadful scourge nothing can 
prevent but a war." That some of his enemies would revive 
their old charge that he was a "hireling of Pitt," Cobbett was 
well aware ; but he asserted that England could gain nothing from 
such an alliance except an advantage shared in common with 
all other civilized nations, that of "staying the destructive tor- 
rent of Jacobinism." 

A writer in Porcupine's Gasette,^'^ who signed himself "Y," 
thought it absurd to attribute all the hostility between France and 
the United States to the "deceptions and encouragement of an 
American faction." "The evil did not originate with them, but 
in the deep-laid, inveterate policy of France, her ambition, in- 
trigue, and corruption are more to be dreaded and execrated than 
all the democrats of America. We must either agree to be gov- 
erned by a French Minister and conform at all times to her am- 
bitious and turbulent politics or incur her displeasure ; an honest 
neutrality she will not suffer, any more than she will bear a 
rival." If France should promise compensation for the damage 
she has done and agree never to offend again, "let us not for- 
get that she still is France, artful, perfidious France, and only 
waits another opportunity to aim a surer blow." 

Porcupine's Gazette for January 1, 1799, contains an account 
of an English victory over the French off the north of Ireland, 
and also of the Battle of the Nile. "This is a charming com- 
mencement of the New Year. This day twelve months will be 
the first of the nineteenth century and before it arrives, I think 
we shall see the republic of France humbled to the dust and her 
despots destroyed." And next day the Gazette continued in 
a similar vein : 

"Before it [the New Year] be terminated, I think we shall 
see the rapacious, the base, the bloody Republic of France totally 
annihilated and her pillaged territory wrested from her, if not 

"April 4, 1797. 



96 Smith College Studies in History 

her ancient dominions frittered away. The century began with 
a glorious war on the part of the Britons against the intrigues 
and ambitious projects of this vain and perfidious race." 

"Americanus"^^ was of the opinion that France had already 
declared war upon us the day on which she so contemptuously 
dismissed our minister. Speaking of the Jacobins, he says : "one 
of their common tricks has been to represent that many-headed 
monster the Republic as waging war against the tyrants of Eur- 
ope to establish universal liberty and peace, when nothing can be 
more foreign from the truth. . . . The case is just the re- 
verse ; this common enemy has invaded the rights of all other 
nations and, abroad as well as at home, she has shown the most 
daring contempt for every law and principle that is reverenced 
among men. After fighting like devils for seven years, to con- 
quer liberty as they phrase it, the people of France are at this 
instant, the most contemptible slaves existing. . . . But 
whatever may be the future fate of this degraded people, whether 
they are destined to groan long under the scourge of vulgar 
tyrants or to submit to the milder sway of their ancient line of 
princes, it is happy for us that the alliance between France and 
America is at an end. God forbid it should ever be revived !" 



Gazette of the United States, February 23, 1798. 



CHAPTER IV 

Political Parties 
/. The Origin of Parties 

Three different theories as to the origin of national poHtical 
parties in the United States have recently been advocated. Pro- 
fessor John Spencer Bassett thinks that there were fairly well 
defined parties in 1791, but he does not think that they had any 
very direct connection with the parties of 1787-1788. In other 
words, he holds that the political divisions of the country which 
resulted from the ratification of the constitution were not car- 
ried over into Washington's administration, but disappeared 
when the constitution was adopted. The Federalist party of 
1787-1788 was composed of those who wished a more effective 
government than that which existed under the Articles of Con- 
federation, and the Federalist party of 1791 consisted of those 
who supported Hamilton and his policies. The problems of 
1791 were new and not concerned with union or confusion but 
with two distinct and different lines of internal policy. ^ 

Professor O. G. Libby agrees with Professor Bassett that 
the division of the country into Federalists and Anti-Federalists 
over the ratification of the constitution was not the beginning of 
the later Federalist-Republican alignment, but he goes further 
and denies the existence of any real party cleavage during the 
administration of Washington and the early part of the admin- 
istration of Adams. He regards this as a transitional period 
so far as party development was concerned. There were fac- 
tional and sectional animosities but no genuine party divisions. 
It was only with the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Laws 
during Adams's administration that a real political party came 
into existence. Jefferson saw in these laws and the indignation 
towhich they gave rise, because of their severity towards aliens 
and the menace to freedom of speech and of the press, the op- 



^J. S. Bassett, The Federalist System (New York and London. 1906), 
p. 42. 



98 Smith College Studies in History 

portunity to found a genuine political party. Libby character- 
izes the presidential election of 1800 as a turning point in our 
history fully as important as the adoption of the constitution. 
It was a victory of the first political party that really represented 
the people of the United States. - 

Professor C. A. Beard disagrees with these two scholars. He 
is inclined to think that there was "a fundamental relation be- 
tween the division over the adoption of the Constitution and the 
later party antagonism between Federalists and Anti-Federal- 
ists." His theory is based upon evidence gained from a study 
of pamphlets and periodicals of the decade from 1790 to 1800, 
which leaves no doubt in his mind that definite party alignments 
did exist and that they were generally recognized. Furthermore, 
the writings of such representative men as Washington, Hamil- 
ton, Jefferson, and Madison give proof that their authors thought 
there were political parties. The names Federalist and Anti- 
Federalist were frequently used in the literature of the period.^ 

There are many letters and articles in the Philadelphia news- 
papers of the time which throw light upon the problem of the 
origin of political parties, and so far as their evidence goes it 
supports the theory of Professor Beard. For example, a cor- 
respondent of the National Gazette,^ in an article entitled "A 
Candid State of Parties," is positive that parties existed in 1792 
and also that there was a direct connection between the party 
lines existing in 1789, when the constitution was adopted, and 
those of the period immediately following, when the measures 
of the Federal Government were being put into operation. The 
writer states that there have been three periods of party de- 
velopment. In the first period, the distinction was between 
Whigs and Tories, those who advocated the cause of indepen- 
dence and those who adhered to the British. This state of things 



' O. G. Libby, articles in The Quarterly Journal of the University of 
North Dakota, vols. II and III. Quoted in C. A. Beard, Economic Ori- 
gins of Jeffersonian Democracy, pp. 12-33. 

' Beard, Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, pp. 22-22). 

* September 26, 1792. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 99 

was ended by the treaty of peace in 1783. The second period be- 
gan in 1783 with the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, 
and was terminated in 1789 with the ratification of the Consti- 
tution. The party divisions of the third period turned upon the 
diflferences of opinion regarding the measures to be employed in 
carrying the principles of the constitution into efifect, and were in 
fact a continuation of the previous alignment. 

One of the divisions, which he calls the Anti-Republican 
party, consists of "those who, from particular interest, from 
natural temper or from the habits of life, are more partial to the 
opulent than to the other classes of society and having debauched 
themselves into a persuasion that mankind are incapable of gov- 
erning themselves, it follows with them, of course, that govern- 
ment can be carried on only by the pageantry of rank, the influ- 
ence of money and emoluments and the terror of military force. 
Men of these sentiments must naturally wish to point the meas- 
ures of government less to the interest of the many than of a few 
and less to the reason of the many than to their weaknesses, 
hoping the government itself may by degrees be narrowed in a 
fewer hands and approximated to a hereditary form." The 
other, which he calls the Republican party, consists of "those 
who, believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of 
governing themselves and hating hereditary power as an insult 
to the reason and an outrage to the rights of man, are naturally 
offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the un- 
derstanding and to the general interest of the community or that 
is not strictly conformable to the principles of republican govern- 
ment." 

The writer of an anonymous pamphlet, A Definition of 
Parties, published in Philadelphia in 1794, had no doubt that 
there was a distinct party cleavage. The dedication to his 
work contains these words : "The existence of two parties in 
Congress is apparent. The fact is disclosed almost upon every 
important question. Whether the subject be foreign or domes- 
tic — relative to war or peace — navigation or commerce — the mag- 
netism of opposite views draws them wide as the poles asunder. 



100 Smith College Studies in History 

The situation of the pubHc good in the hands of two parties 
nearly poised as to numbers must be extremely perilous. Truth 
is a thing, not of divisibility into conflicting parts, but of unity. 
Hence both sides cannot be right." 

The formation of parties was due to the operation of many 
cross currents, social, economic and sectional. There were 
struggles between rich and poor, between creditors and debtors, 
between industrialists and agrarians, between slave-holders and 
non-slave holders, between the North and the South, and between 
the people of the tide-water section and the people of the fron- 
tier. These diverse elements tended to consolidate into the Fed- 
eralist and Republican parties. Although the division was mainly 
the result of differences of opinion on political issues, it had as 
its philosophical basis two conflicting theories of constitutional 
interpretation, the nationalist or loose-construction theory of 
Hamilton and the states-rights or strict-construction theory of 
Jefferson. All these questions were discussed at length in the 
newspapers and pamphlets of the Federalist period. The plan 
of the following exposition will be to deal first with the question 
of constitutional interpretation and then to consider the political 
issues. 

2. Constitutional Interpretation 

In his celebrated opinion on the constitutionality of a na- 
tional bank,^ February 23, 1791, Hamilton had argued in favor 
of a liberal interpretation of that clause of the constitution which 
empowered Congress *'to make all laws which may be necessary 
and proper for carrying into execution" its vested functions. 
These views were further elaborated in his Report on Manufac- 
tures,^ December 5, 1791, and the argument was strengthened 
by an appeal to the "General Welfare" clause of the constitution. 
The principle was laid down that the powers of Congress are not 
susceptible of specification or definition, that every object which 
operates through the whole nation concerns the general welfare, 



' Hamilton's Writings, vol. Ill, pp. 445-493. 
'Ibid., vol. IV, pp. 70-198. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 101 

that it is left to the discretion of Congress just what those ob- 
jects which concern the general welfare shall be, and that what- 
ever concerns education, agriculture, manufactures and commerce 
comes within the sphere of the national legislature. 

But, asked a correspondent of the National Gazette,'^ "Is 
there any object of consequence for which money is not necessary 
or any object at all which money may not be applied to and so 
be brought under the power of Congress? Is there any object 
which in its operation may not by possibility extend through the 
Union? Cannot such a discretion of the national legislature 
pronounce all objects whatever to concern the general welfare? 
Can any usurpation of power be judged unconstitutional by the 
judicial authority, if the legislature can constitutionally do what- 
ever in their discretion concerns the general welfare? Does 
not what concerns the general interest of learning, agriculture, 
manufactures and commerce embrace by far the greatest part of 
the sphere of legislation?" If the legislature can declare such 
matters to concern the general welfare, cannot they apply the 
same discretion to provision for the poor, maintenance of an es- 
tablished church and anything else it pleases? There is danger 
that such a doctrine would destroy every boundary between the 
general and state governments and give indefinite powers to the 
former. Also there is the same danger of breaking down the bar- 
riers between the several departments of the general government 
and making either the executive or the legislative supreme. 
"Was not the general government adopted and has it not been 
by all the world understood as limited to the particular powers 
specifying and defining the general terms, common defence and 
general welfare ; and not as clothed by these terms with power 
susceptible neither of specification nor definition? If the ex- 
position in the Report should prevail, will not the people of 
America be under a Government which is not the choice of the 
people but the choice of those who administer the government? 
Is there not a degree of misconstruction and assumption of 

January 12, 1792. 



102 Smith College Studies in History 

power that may raise the awful question, whether it does not 
touch the fundamental compact of government, and is it not wise 
to keep at a distance from that danger?" 

The possibility of the division of the Union into a Northern 
and Southern Confederacy was apparently suggested as early 
as 1791. In answer to these suggestions there appeared an 
article in the National Gazette, November 10, 1791, entitled 
"The Interest of the Northern and Southern States Forever In- 
separable," in which the writer predicts that there will always 
be the closest relations between the North and the South. It 
was the design of nature in her formation of that part of North 
America occupied by the United States, that the two sections 
should ever be mutually dependent on each other. Because of 
New England's not very fertile or productive soil, a great part 
of her population will be engaged in fisheries, many others will 
be employed in manufacturing; while many would be out of 
employment, if it were not for the carrying trade of the Southern 
states from Maryland to Georgia. "An intimate union, founded 
upon the broad basis of the carrying trade may continue durable 
as time and the present constitution of things." It will probably 
never be to the interest of the Southern States to become their 
own carriers. Nothing now seems to be wanting to strengthen 
the close connection between the northern and southern parts of 
this country except a capital situated in the center of the country 
and easily accessible to all parts. 

There was, however, no general discussion of nullification 
and of the dangers of a dissolution of the Union until Congress 
began to consider the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. The 
constitutionality of those measures was challenged in the news- 
papers, and threats of revolution and nullification were made 
several months before the appearance of the Kentucky and Vir- 
ginia Resolutions.^ The issue of Carey's United States Re- 



' The Alien Act was passed June 25th ; the Alien Enemies Act, July 
6th; and the Sedition Act, July 14, 1798. The Kentucky Resolutions were 
adopted November 16, 1798, and November 22, 1799, and the Virginia 
Resolutions December 24, 1798. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 103 

corder for July 3, 1798, contains several sarcastic paragraphs on 
the Sedition Law, including the following attack upon Cobbett : 
"Some of our first architects are now busily employed in mak- 
ing out a plan and elevation of a Bastile upon a large scale for 
reception of seditious republicans, Jacobins and United Irishmen 
. . . . If the important office of keeper of that bulwark of 
national and presidential security, the Bastile, be not already 
given away or promised to some of the great war chiefs in 
either house of Congress, we would recommend Peter Porcu- 
pine as a proper Cerberus for that department. . . . From 
the number of plots and conspiracies which have lately been 
discovered by Porcupine and certain members of a great house, 
it would not be a matter of astonishment if they should bring to 
light a French or Jacobin plot for 'blowing up the Delaware' in 
order to drown Philadelphia and destroy our incipient naval 
power and greatness." 

Carey also brought forward arguments in favor of the right 
of a state to pass upon the constitutionality of an act of Con- 
gress : "When a law shall have been passed, in violation of the 
constitution, making it criminal to expose the crimes, the official 
vices or abuses or the attempts of men in power to usurp a des- 
potic authority, is there any alternative between an abandonment 
of the constitution and resistance? . . . ." "What is a fac- 
tion?" he continues. "It is any number of men in or out of 
office eager to obtain or maintain themselves in power, in direct 
violation of the laws or constitution or in opposition to the inter- 
ests of a nation. For an illustration first read the third sup- 
plementary article to the federal constitution and then read 
all the sedition bills. "^ "Is not every officer of a state govern- 
ment sworn to support the constitution of the United States? 
If the federal government passes laws contravening the consti- 
tution, is it not a breach of oath in a state officer to carry such 
laws into effect ? Are not the state as well as the federal govern- 
ment to judge of the constitution? Is not the constitution a con- 



Carey's United States Recorder, July 3, 1798. 



104 Smith College Studies in History 

tract between different states? Are not they to judge whether 
this contract be broken or violated ?"^*^ 

Numerous articles and letters in defense of the Alien and 
Sedition Acts appeared in Porcupine's Gazette. Cobbett's own 
views were stated in the issue for January 5, 1799 : "The follow- 
ing article," he says, "is taken from a Dublin paper of October 
12. Read it, I pray you, whoever you are, and then tell me if 
the Alien and Sedition Bills are not necessary : 'Yesterday eve- 
ning the State prisoners were all served with notice to prepare 
for their departure to America. None of them will be allowed 
at large through the city previous to their embarkation. And 
those who do not comply with the terms of going direct to 
America in vessels appointed by the government will be confined 
here during the war.' I absolutely would ship them off if I 
were the President, the moment they landed in the country. I 
do not know where I would send them to, but here they should 
not remain. This is making a Botany Bay of this country with 
a vengeance." 

"Plain Truth" contributed a series of articles to Porcupine's 
Gazette on the question of the separation of the states, his pur- 
pose being to show that there was just cause to fear for the 
safety of the Union, to fear that plans had been formed which 
would be fatal to the peace and destructive of the United States 
of America and that it was time for sleeping federalism to take 
alarm and arouse itself. It was very essential for our welfare, 
the writer argued, that the Union be preserved : "To every cool, 
reflecting mind, it must be obvious that our national independence 
and consequently our individual liberty, that our peace and our 
happiness depend entirely on maintaining our Union. There 
has already been much discussion of a distinct Northern and 
Southern interest ; and in case there should be a division, a 
Southern Confederacy with Virginia at the head would be likely. 
The Potomac would doubtless form the Northern boundary, as 
Maryland has given proof that she would go with the North. 



'Ibid., July 14, 1798. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 105 

Furthermore, the two Carolinas and Georgia have shown the 
same disposition. Virginia then, with Kentucky and possibly 
Tennessee, would form the new Empire. It could not be more 
extensive." 

Cobbett comments favorably on the motives of "Plain Truth" 
and hopes that he will succeed in his efforts to arouse the de- 
fenders of the Union : "That the states will separate one day 
or another, every man must believe, but whether the separation 
is to take place in a few years or not, will greatly depend on these 
two powerful states [Pennsylvania and Virginia]. If they coal- 
esce in the project, I am afraid no power on earth can prevent 
its succeeding." 

There may, however, he continues, be another cause of sepa- 
ration which "Plain Truth" does not mention : "The New Eng- 
landers know well that they are the rock of the Union. They 
know their own value, they feel their strength, and they will have 
their full share of influence in the federal government or they 
will not be governed by it. It is clear that their influence must 
decrease, because every man has a vote and the middle and south- 
ern states are increasing in inhabitants five times as fast as New 
England is. If Pennsylvania joins her influence to that of New 
England, the balance will be kept up, but the moment she de- 
cidedly throws it into the scale of Virginia, the balance is gone. 
New England loses all her influence in the National Government 
and she establishes a Government of her own."^^ 

J. Political Issues 
The formation of political parties was largely the result 
of disputes over problems of finance and foreign policy which 
have already been discussed. i- Many of the other political is- 
sues of the time were also more or less associated with these two 
subjects. The selection of the federal capital, for example, be- 
came involved in the controversy over the assumption of state 
debts. The Whiskey Rebellion was caused by Hamilton's excise 



Porcupine's Gazette, April 1, 1799. 
' See chapters II and III. 



106 Smith College Studies in History 

tax. The Democratic Societies were formed to express sym- 
pathy with France and distrust of Great Britain. The AHen and 
Sedition Laws and the Kentucky and Virginia Resohitions were 
direct outgrowths of troubles with France during President 
Adams's administration. 

(a) The Seat of the Government 
During 1789 and the early part of 1790, considerable parti- 
san feeling was aroused over the question of the location of the 
permanent seat of government. The final result is well known, 
and need not detain us. Hamilton secured the necessary votes 
in favor of the site on the Potomac in return for Jefferson's aid 
in securing the assumption of the state debts. But an examina- 
tion of the newspaper debate over this issue will throw not a little 
light on the development of opinion. 

"A True Federalist," writing in the Pennsylvania Packet, 
summed up his arguments against the claims of New York as 
follows :^^ (1) The states, in parting with the various powers 
which they vested in the federal government, thought that in 
so strengthening the Union they were furthering their own in- 
terests. But the Union is endangered, if the mutual interests of 
all are not impartially considered. (2) To assemble the govern- 
ment in a place so far from the geographical center of popula- 
tion (there being forty-two representatives and sixteen senators 
from the south of New York and seventeen representatives and 
eight senators to the north of New York) is a very partial act. 
New York may become so powerful as to endanger the Union. 
(3) That part of the constitution which gives a majority of the 
legislature the right to regulate commerce, a fact which may tend 
to monopolize the carrying trade, as well as the power to estab- 
lish duties on foreign imports, may, by incautious or interested 
exercise of these powers, be made the instrument of oppression 
to the southern states. (4) In case of any great question in 
which the northern states are particularly interested the repre- 
sentatives from those states, from ''local advantages of situa- 



' January 5, 1789. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 107 

tion," might assemble quickly and put through their schemes be- 
fore the southern representatives were able to assemble. (5) 
The government should be located near the geographical center 
of population where all might most conveniently enjoy its bene- 
fits, where the collective resources of the Union might be as- 
sembled and administered with greatest ease, where any news 
of an enemy or of a domestic insurrection might be obtained most 
speedily, where the more southern states in continual dangers 
from their proximity to the settlements of foreign nations as 
well as to hostile tribes of Indians might have confidence in the 
aid of the government. (6) The southern states consume more 
imported articles than the north, and consequently the most of 
the revenue from the impost will come from the southern states ; 
therefore they should have a chance of being benefited by the 
expenditure of this money, and this will be possible only if they 
are as near the seat of government as the other states. (7) 
The situation of the capital should be central, so that those who 
have business with the fiscal and judicial departments, together 
with their counsel and witnesses, may easily get to it. (8) The 
rapid growth of the West must be considered ; and the site se- 
lected must be more advantageous from their point of view. (9) 
The reins of control will necessarily have to be relaxed in normal 
times at a great distance from the seat of government ; and that 
will make it necessary for districts farther away to submit to 
extraordinary assertions of governmental power in cases of 
pressing emergency. "How far the exercise of a high-handed 
authority will accord with the feelings of the citizens of the 
southern states requires little reflection to determine." (10) 
The only plea that is alleged for summoning Congress to meet 
at New York is the fact that the archives are there ; but these 
could be moved to a more central location, cheaply and without 
injury. (11) New York is open to the sea and without defence. 
Congress should meet in a place that is more free from danger. 
(12) Where public revenues are concentrated, there is the center 
of the great monied operations. Many will be induced to settle 
there, as business can be transacted more speedily. Those who 



108 Smith College Studies in History 

live in the vicinity will have a better chance of obtaining public 
offices since they can make application personally. For this 
reason Congress should be centrally located. 

Speaking of the punctuality with which the representatives 
and senators from New Etngland assembled at New York, be- 
cause of the facility of traveling during the inclement season of 
the year, and of the danger that southern trade might be sac- 
rificed to the local interests of the New England states, another 
correspondent of the Packet says : "Nothing can prevent this 
but a central residence of Congress which shall favor equally the 
early and punctual attendance of every member of Congress. 
Philadelphia or Baltimore should be preferred to New York. 
If they are not, in the first session of Congress it will lay a foun- 
dation of animosities that no government can prevent or heal."^* 

Another correspondent fears that British influence will pre- 
vail if our government meets in any place where English inter- 
ests are as strong as they are in New York. "Great Britain 
can never be indifferent to our prosperity. The same spirit which 
actuated her councils during the war governs them in peace. 
That situation, therefore, which connects the United States 
most with Great Britain will always be improper for the resi- 
dence of Congress. If there is a city in the Union in which 
an attachment to British manners and customs predominates — 
if in that city half the principal people have sons or brothers now 
supported by royal pensions in Great Britain, certainly Congress 
should avoid that place if they wish to establish Republican 
manners in the United States. "^^ 

In reply to the objections made against the high salaries paid 
to members of Congress and the officers of the new government, 
"A Traveller," writing in the Pennsylvania Gazette, says that 
something is to be said in favor of our rulers. "They sit in a 
town filled chiefly with the friends and adherents of Great Brit- 
ain who constantly buzz in their ears British ideas of salaries, 
rank, dress, and equipage, and which, from the want of better 



'Ibid., March 17, 1789. 
'Pennsylvania Gazette, May 7, 1789. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 109 

information, our delegates mistake for the sense of the United 
States. The newspapers, which in other states are the vehicles 
of the opinions and complaints of the people, will never con- 
tain original strictures upon any of the Acts of Congress while 
the citizens of New York make the residence of Congress among 
them their first object. These considerations show the necessity 
of Congress immediately fixing upon a place of permanent resi- 
dence, otherwise our liberties may be sacrificed to the hospitable 
cards and tea-parties of the citizens of New York."^'^ 

"A Late Traveller" calls attention to the fact that the 
price of boarding in New York is nearly twice as high as it is 
in Philadelphia, in part due to the fact that New York is only 
half as large as Philadelphia. This is a substantial reason why 
Congress should reside in Philadelphia. It ought to be remem- 
bered that the board of the members of Congress is to be paid 
out of a common treasury and, of course, that every citizen 
the United States must pay his proportion of it.^" 

The question of the location of the national capital also called 
forth an extensive pamphlet by "A Citizen of Philadelphia"^^ 
who argued at length in favor of postponing the ultimate de- 
cision and urged the choice of Philadelphia as a temporary seat 
of the government. He held that an immediate decision upon 
the permanent residence of Congress would be very "improper" 
for the following reasons : ( 1 ) Adequate buildings for the ac- 
commodation of Congress are already to be had in Philadelphia, 
and there is at present no money to spare for the erection of 
new ones. In the present state of the finances and with the nu- 
merous demands being made on the treasury, the country is in 
no condition to expend such sums of money as would be required 
to buy the ground and erect the buildings necessary for a new 
capitol. The claims of the nation's creditors, both foreign and 
domestic, should be satisfied with the first money that can be 
raised. Whatever may be the feeling about the purchasers of 



^Ubid., August 19, 1789. 

"Ibid., May 13, 1789. 

^ An Essay on the Seat of the Federal Government, Philadelphia, 1789. 



110 Smith College Studies in History 

alienated certificates, there is no doubt about the claims of the 
original holders, and they should come first. (2) Debates on 
the subject in Congress have brought out great differences of 
opinion as to geographical questions, and it is evident that the 
internal geography of the country is not definitely enough known 
to make it possible to decide upon a central location for the gov- 
ernment. (3) Four or five new states are soon to be added to the 
Union, and questions affecting the whole nation should not be 
decided until their admission. (4) In the late discussions in 
Congress, two parties have appeared which are nearly equal in 
number, and which have contradictory views as to the proper 
location of the capital. Such a division, if allowed to continue, 
may "destroy mutual confidence and lessen our unanimity in 
matters having no connection with the seat of government." 
But time may modify these conflicting opinions. (5) In locating 
the capital, the geographical center of population, not of terri- 
tory, should be sought for, and this will be a shifting point for 
some time to come. (6) Congress should be situated where ac- 
commodations are best and where foreign and domestic news 
can be most easily obtained. "I think," says the writer, "we 
might as well immure them [the members of Congress] in the 
bottom of a well or shut them up in a cave, where they would be 
effectually cut off from all intelligence of the world, as to place 
them within the desert dreary fogs and disheartening agues of 
either the Potomac or Susquehannah, where there is nothing 
grand and majestic to be seen but the ice and floods and noth- 
ing lively to be heard or felt but musketoes." 

The author then urges the following considerations in favor 
of the choice of Philadelphia, at least as a temporary site, in 
preference to any other location for the capitol : (1) Phila- 
delphia is as near the geographical center as any place which is 
capable of accommodating Congress, and it will continue so for 
a long time. (2) It is the greatest center of wealth, trade, and 
navigation in the United States. News, both foreign and do- 
mestic, may easily be obtained there. (3) It is easily fortified, 
affords splendid anchorage, and is protected from all winds, 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 111 

tides, and storms. (4) Plenty of timber, iron and other stores 
for building, rigging and repairing ships, together with the food 
necessary for provisioning them, and the seamen to man them, 
are always available in the vicinity of Philadelphia. (5) "The 
climate is temperate, the air good, the spring and fall are delight- 
ful, the winters mostly moderate, with no more snow or frost 
than is necessary for the convenience of the inhabitants and the 
growth of vegetables ; the heat of summer is rarely intense, and 
if at any time it becomes violent it seldom lasts long; it is very 
uncommon to have the mercury at 90 degrees." 

With pardonable exaggeration the author continues to sing 
the praises of his city, and all objections to it seem to him in- 
significant. "When compared with any of them," he says, "it 
has more houses, more inhabitants, more riches, more churches, 
and more play-houses, and quite as much, though perhaps some- 
what less sociability, more punctuality in payments, which 
is some indication of honesty." And if any object that the 
presence of ice hinders navigation in the river for two months in 
the year, it may be replied that in winter ships are rarely at sea 
and that in any case they soon find a harbor in Chesapeake Bay 
or in New York. And if any feel that the population is too large, 
he must bear in mind that wherever the seat of the government 
is, there will a large population congregate, and the difficulty 
could only be avoided by frequent removals. And finally, if any- 
one fear that "the various allurements and pleasures of the place 
are apt to divert some of their numbers from their attention to 
the public business and their duty in the house," it may be an- 
swered that this cannot be remedied by running away from the 
mischief, but by imposing severe laws on their own members, 
and by rigidly punishing and even expelling such as are guilty of 
any scandalous practices which corrupt their morals or councils 
or such who, on any account neglect their attendance and duty 
in the House." 

(b) The Democratic Societies and the Whiskey Rebellion 
Although proof has never been adduced that the Democratic 



112 Smith College Studies in History 

Societies of Pennsylvania had any direct connection with the 
Whiskey Rebelhon, many respectable citizens agreed with Presi- 
dent Washington in his belief that they were really responsible 
for it, and during the excitement caused by that insurrection, the 
Societies themselves became a political issue of great importance, 
and many bitter attacks were directed against them. 

The Democratic Society of Pennsylvania,^^ the first organiza- 
tion of its kind in the United States, was established at Philadel- 
phia in 1793 in imitation of the Jacobin Club in Paris. The fol- 
lowing quotation from the Principles and Regulations of the 
Society-*^' sets forth the reasons for its formation : "With a 
view to cultivate a just knowledge of rational liberty, to facilitate 
the enjoyment and exercise of our civil rights and to transmit 
unimpaired to posterity the glorious inheritance of a free Repub- 
lican government, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania is 
constituted and established. Unfettered by religious or national 
distinctions, unbiased by party and unmoved by ambition, this 
institution embraces the interest and invites the support of every 
virtuous citizen. The public good is indeed its sole object." The 
fundamental principles of the association were declared to be as 
follows: (1) "That the People have the inherent and exclusive 
right and power of making and altering forms of government 
and that, for regulating and protecting our social interests, a 
Republican government is the most natural and beneficial form 
which the wisdom of Man has devised." (2) "That the Republi- 
can Constitutions of the United States and the state of Penn- 
sylvania, being framed and established by the people, it is our 
duty as good citizens to support them. And in order to do so, 
it is likewise the duty of every Freeman to regard with attention 
and to discuss without fear, the conduct of the public Servants in 
every department of the government." 

The Rules and Regulations provided that there should be one 
society in Philadelphia and one in each county of the state. 



" See above, chapter III. 

'^Principles, Articles and Regulations agreed upon by the members of 
the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, May 30, 1793, Philadelphia, 1793. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 113 

Stated meetings were to be held the first Thursday in every 
month, but as a matter of fact the Society met almost every week. 
New members were to be admitted and officers elected by ballot, 
a majority of the votes of the members present being in all cases 
decisive. No new member could be balloted upon at the same 
meeting at which he was proposed. Every new member was re- 
quired to subscribe to the constitution and to pay an entrance fee 
of fifty cents to the treasurer. 

The officers were a president, two vice-presidents, two sec- 
retaries, a treasurer, and a corresponding committee of five mem- 
bers whose duty it was to keep in touch with the other Societies 
in the country and to lay the results before the Society. David 
Rittenhouse was the first president of the Society, and Benjamin 
Franklin Bache, editor of the Aurora, was a member of the Cor- 
responding Committee. Among the other members were Stephen 
Girard, Eleazer Oswald, editor of the Independent Gazetteer, and 
Clement Biddle. In the summer of 1794, the Society was given 
a room at the University of Pennsylvania, where its subsequent 
meetings were held. 

In true French Jacobin style the use of all titles was re- 
nounced in the following resolution of March 27, 1794: "Re- 
solved that the appellation 'Citizen' shall, exclusively of all titles, 
be used in the correspondence of this Society, that the usual for- 
mulae at the bottom of a letter shall be suppressed, and that all 
letters shall be dated from the Era of American Independence. ^i 

Intimate relations were early established between the Demo- 
cratic Society and the German Republican Society, another Phila- 
delphia organization which had been formed to support the rights 
of man and espouse the French cause. On February 20, 1794, a 
communication was received from the president of the German 
Republican Society to the effect that as long as the two organiza- 
tions were founded on the same principles and had the same ob- 
jects in view their intentions could "be better promoted and a 
greater energy given to their exertions by the establishment of a 



Manuscript Alinutes of the Democratic Society, pp. 62-63. 



114 Smith College Studies in History 

mutual correspondence and a concurrent operation." The Demo- 
cratic Society cordially accepted this invitation and, on March 
6, resolved unanimously to unite with the German Society in 
any measures deemed proper to promote the public welfare.^^ 

An amusing parody on the resolutions of the Democratic So- 
cieties was contributed by "Ironicus" to the Gazette of the United 
States on January 30, 1794: 

"Whereas the government of the United States from which 
the people were led to expect great and manifold blessings hath 
now been nearly five years in operation and whereas the public 
expectation hath been entirely disappointed and defeated in re- 
spect to said government — by the continuance of anarchy, con- 
fusion and discord among the people — by the prostration of the 
public credit and the decline and contraction of commerce — the 
discouragement of agriculture, the depression of mechanic arts — 
the reduction of the value of ships, houses, lands, cattle, lumber, 
grain and other produce of the farming interest — ^by the stagna- 
tion of domestic intercourse, particularly the embarrassments on 
the coasting trade — by the destruction of mutual confidence be- 
tween man and man — by the apathy and indifference which hath 
seized on all the interprizing faculties of our citizens, mani- 
fested in a total dereliction of all plans for the improvement of 
our roads, and facilitating by bridges and canals, internal com- 
munications — by the total defection of all the tried patriots of the 
United States from those principles which actuated them 'in the 
times, that tried men's souls' by placing the administration of 
public affairs in the hands of men who, though they have braved 
death in every form to secure the liberties and independence of 
the United States, are now lost to every sense of the blessings 
they fought and conquered to obtain and from being patriots are 
transferred to parricides. 

"Therefore for the remedy of all these and many other evils 
seen, felt and groaned under from Georgia to New Hampshire 
— be it known, that one general and universal change ought to 



^American Daily Advertiser, March 15, 1794. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 115 

take place — revolution is the word — Revolve, revolve, revolve, 
till all the pleasing, comforting, heart-consoling and exhilarating 
delights of capsizing, topsy-turvy ing, undermining, disjointing 
and overthrowing all the systems, principles and practices of this 
wretched country are fully realized and enjoyed until 

"Those who are in, 
No longer shall grin ; 
And those who are out, 
No longer shall pout." 

Apart from the foregoing satire, the Democratic Society ap- 
pears to have received the compliment of but slight attention 
from the Philadelphia newspapers before the outbreak of the 
Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. The situation be- 
came very difTerent, however, when on November 19, 1794, 
Washington sent the message to Congress in which he charged 
that the insurrection had "been fomented by combinations of 
men, who, careless of consequences, and disregarding the un- 
erring truth that those who rouse cannot always appease a civil 
convulsion, have disseminated from an ignorance or perversion 
of facts, suspicions, jealousies, and accusations, of the whole 
government."-^ This was generally understood to be an attack 
upon the Democratic Societies of the country and particularly 
upon the two organizations in Philadelphia. As a matter of fact, 
although both the Democratic and the German Republican So- 
cieties regarded the excise as an unconstitutional and dangerous 
measure, they both denied any connection with the insurrection 
itself. 

On July 31, 1794, the Democratic Society passed a resolution 
to the effect that "although we conceive Excise systems to be op- 
pressively hostile to the liberties of this country and a nursery 
of vice and sycophancy, we, notwithstanding, highly disapprove 
of every opposition to them, not warranted by that frame of 
government which has received the sanction of the people of the 
United States." It was further resolved "that we will use our ut- 



^^ Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Ed. J. D. Richardson (Wash- 
ington, 1897), vol. I, p. 166. 



116 Smith College Studies in History 

most efforts to effect a repeal of the Excise laws by constitutional 
means ; that we will at all times make legal opposition to every 
measure which shall endanger the freedom of our country — but 
that we will bear testimony against every unconstitutional at- 
tempt to prevent the execution of any law sanctioned by the ma- 
jority of the people. "2^ 

It is noteworthy that, moderate as these resolutions seem, 
some members of the Society, not present when they were 
adopted, disapproved of them and feared disastrous conse- 
quences ; and a motion was later passed that a committee be ap- 
pointed to write to the Democratic Societies west of the moun- 
tains concerning the resolutions, assuring them of the parent 
Society's disapproval of any unlawful measures.-^ The letter 
drafted by this committee to the Democratic Society of Wash- 
ington County was reported to and approved by the Philadelphia 
Society on August 14, 1794, and has been preserved in the min- 
utes. It reads in part as follows : "Friends and Fellow Citizens : 
We beg you to accept our condolence for the lives that have al- 
ready been lost on the present unhappy occasion, and we sin- 
cerely hope that matters may be accommodated without the 
further effusion of human blood or the destruction of property. 
With regard to the law which has given birth to so much general 
uneasiness . . . fancy wants a figure and language words to 
convey our detestation of Excise-systems in this country. 
[In every instance where an excise law has been adopted] 
poverty, wretchedness, slavery and corruption among the people 
have been the invariable consequences. . . [But, neverthe- 
less] let us endeavor to apply a constitutional remedy to the 
evil by obtaining a repeal of the law. In the meantime, Fellow- 
Citizens, we earnestly recommend prudence and moderation."-^ 

On September 11, the Philadelphia Society passed a resolu- 
tion approving of the "moderate, prudent and republican conduct 
of the President of the United States and the Governor of 



'Manuscript Minutes, p. 131. 
•Ibid., pp. 133-134. 
'Ibid., pp. 136-137. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 117 

Pennsylvania in pursuing the plan of pacification with the wes- 
tern people, an appeal to the reason of freeman being more 
consonant with the principles of liberty than the argument of 
immediate coercion." And it was further resolved "that we 
fully concur in the sentiment that the strength of the state ought 
to be exerted should the power of reason prove inadequate with 
the Western citizens." 

These resolutions in support of the government were adopted 
without opposition. It was a very different thing, however, to 
condemn the rebels, when a third resolution was proposed, "That 
the intemperance of the Western Citizens in not accepting the 
equitable and pacific proposals made to them by the government 
augurs an enmity to the genuine principles of freedom and that 
such an outrage upon order and democracy. . . will merit 
the proscription of every friend to equal liberty;" it gave rise to 
more than a warm debate. The president of the Society left his 
chair and with a number of members withdrew from the room. 
Some thirty members remained with Benjamin F. Bache in the 
chair, and after extended discussion decided to withdraw the 
resolution.2''' 

Although evidence was lacking to prove that the Democratic 
Societies were responsible for the Whiskey Rebellion, the Fed- 
eralists tried to use the Rebellion as a pretext for breaking them 
up. This is shown in the following address issued by the So- 
ciety of Philadelphia to the other Societies of the United 
States :2* 

"Sensations of the most unpleasant kind must have been ex- 
perienced by every reflecting person who is not leagued against the 
liberties of this country, on hearing and reading the various 
charges and invectives fabricated for the destruction of the Pa- 
triotic Societies in America. So indefatigable are the aristo- 
cratic faction among us in disseminating principles unfriendly 
to the rights of man — at the same time so artful as to envelop 
their machinations with the garb of patriotism, that it is much 



"Ibid., pp. 143-146. 

"November 27, 1794. Ibid., pp. 163-170. 



118 Smith College Studies in History 

to be feared unless vigilance, union and firmness mark the con- 
duct of all real friends to equal liberty, their combinations and 
schemes will have their desired effect. 

"The enemies of Liberty and Equality have never ceased to 
traduce us — even certain influential and public characters have 
ventured to publicly condemn all political societies. When de- 
nunciations of this kind are presented to the world, supported by 
the influence of character and great names, they too frequently 
obtain a currency which they are by no means entitled to either 
on the score of justice, property or even common sense. 

"Unfortunately, a favorable circumstance for the designs of 
aristocracy lately took place — we "mean an insurrection in the 
western counties of this state. The executive, however, by 
marching an army into that country, many of zvhom were mem- 
bers of this and other political societies soon obliged those people 
to acknowledge obedience to the laws. . . . There are not 
wanting some in administration who are attempting to persuade 
the people into a belief that the insurrection was encouraged 
and abetted by the wicked designs of certain self-created so- 
cieties — that no cause of discontent with respect to the laws or 
administration could reasonably exist. Is it not an indisputable 
fact that the complaints of the western people against the excise 
law have sounded in the ears of Congress for sometime before the 
existence of the present Patriotic Societies?" 

The Society also issued an address, December 18, 1794, to 
its "Fellow Citizens of the United States," which refers quite 
definitely to the attack made upon it in the President's message : 

"The principles and proceedings of our Association have 
lately been calumniated. We should think ourselves unworthy 
to be ranked as freeman, if, awed by the name of any man, how- 
ever he may command the public gratitude for past services, we 
could suffer in silence so sacred a right, so important a principle, 
as the freedom of opinion to be infringed by an attack on So- 
cieties which stand on that constitutional basis. . . . 

"If freedom in the communication of sentiments by speech or 
through the press. ... is the right of every citizen, by what 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 119 

mode of reasoning can that right be denied to an assemblage of 
citizens? . . . and in the conduct of this Society since the 
first estabHshment, they trust no instance can be adduced in 
which they have overstepped the just bounds of the right of 
which they claim the enjoyment." 

The address then went on to say that the late western insur- 
rection has been taken advantage of "to cast an odium on po- 
pular Societies and has been made the plea for their suppres- 
sion. . . . The fact is that most of the people who in the 
western counties have been guilty of the outrage on the laws, 
which every good citizen must lament, are too ignorant to have 
been incited to those unwarrantable measures by the circulation 
of the sentiments and opinions which the Democratic Societies 
have, from time to time, expressed on public men and meas- 
ures. . . . Indeed, the Great Luminary of the Anti-Demo- 
cratic party had declared officially that the opposition to the 
Excise Law dates from its existence ; and it is well to know that 
Democratic Societies were not thought of 'till sometime after the 
passing of that law."^'' 

There is plenty of evidence to show that the excise troubles 
antedate the rise of the Democratic Societies. An article in 
the Gazette of the United States for September 26, 1792, com- 
plained that the people on the frontier had not paid a state tax 
since the Revolution and that they would not pay the excise 
except under compulsion. '"Tis not this, that or the other mode 
of revenue," said the writer, "which they would oppose, but the 
payment of any and all public dues. Not to execute the laws 
among such people, would be to abandon the maintenance of 
civil society and to reduce a free and civilized nation to a state 
of nature." 

Various other articles appeared in the newspapers of the 
next two years which were severely critical of the people of 
western Pennsylvania. A correspondent of the Pennsylvania 
Gasette^^ advised them to consider well their conduct, since from 



Manuscript Minutes, pp. 174-184. 
August 20, 1794. 



120 Smith College Studies in History 

north to south there was but one opinion regarding their late 
proceedings, and that opinion was against them. "For how- 
ever divided [men might be] respecting the utihty of an excise, 
all unite in reprobating measures which strike at the existence of 
Society, and lay the ax to the root of all the blessings of peace, 
liberty and safety." 

"A Citizen," addressing a communication to "The Enemies 
of Anarchy," expressed the opinion that anti-federalism was at 
the basis of the insurrection. "It requires not the spirit of in- 
spiration," he said, "to foretell that the government of the United 
States is the object of the insurgents. To be convinced of this, 
it is only necessary for those who doubt to look into the charac- 
ters of the leaders, and they will soon discover that the whiskey 
is only given out for the purpose of intoxicating the multitude 
and that anti-federalism will be their order of march. . . . 
If government in any form is considered as a blessing to the 
governed, the friends of our government ought to act with 
unanimity and firmness on the present occasion. "^^ 

(c) Titles 

The question of titles was another issue which gave rise to 
much public discussion, and the advocates of democratic sim- 
plicity were very much exercised over the prospect of their use. 
The well-known debate on this question in Congress early in 
January, 1795, was echoed in the newspapers. 

As early as 1789 a correspondent of the Pennsylvania Ga- 
zette^'^ compliments Congress on the good sense and indepen- 
dence of European monarchical customs which it has shown in 
refusing to give titles to the President and Vice-President. He 
thinks them "only calculated to please children and fools," and 
he would be much pleased if "the promiscuous use of the titles 
Honorable, Worshipful, etc., was banished from our legislatures 
and courts. They smell of the corruption of European govern- 
ment." 



Pennsylvania Gazette, August 27, 1794. 
'May 13, 1789. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 121 

The celebrations and festivities all over the country on the 
occasion of the birthday of Washington in 1791 and the atten- 
tion given to the day in the newspapers was very displeasing to 
one of the subscribers to the Aurora.'^^ He writes of the dem- 
onstrations as follows : "Though we admire the character of 
our Illustrious Personage, the anniversary of whose Birth is thus 
celebrated, yet we cannot but think that this mode of expressing 
our gratitude for the services of any individual, however great 
his deserts, possesses too strong a tincture of Monarchy to be 
adopted by Republicans. Let us rejoice at the birthday of our 
Empire; let us keep it as a day of Joy and Thanks, but let the 
Birthdays of Presidents be blotted from the Calender of Feasts." 

Benjamin Franklin Bache, the editor of the Aurora, was es- 
pecially vigorous in expressing his abhorrence of the pomp and 
pageantry of monarchy. On one occasion he expresses his feel- 
ings as follows : "It is grateful to a heart anxious for the hap- 
piness of mankind to observe the rapid progress of the principles 
of the American and French Revolutions. ... to find that 
almost wherever the book the the High Priest of Ecclesiastical 
Establishments and the Right Honorable Solicitor General for 
the claims of despotism is read, its doctrines and maxims are 
regarded with superlative contempt. "^'^ 

And in reply to an article in the Gazette of the United States 
which had advocated the use of certain official titles, the same 
editor says : "Does not the name of the office convey an idea of 
the trust which is reposed in the officer? — and what more dig- 
nified title could be bestowed on our supreme executive Magis- 
trate than George Washington? Would the epithet Honor or 
even Excellency, annexed to his name, express as much as his 
Name itself? Does Excellency call to mind the services he 
has rendered to his country? and is not George Washington 
synonymous with prudent and brave warrior, profound states- 
man, defender of liberty, good citizen, great man?"^^ 



=^ March 4, 1791. 
^Aurora, June 4, 1791. 
''Ibid., June 7, 1791. 



122 Smith College Studies in History 

"X," a contributor of the Aurora, considered the idea of an 
hereditary nobihty as "incompatible with every law of nature." 
Wisdom and virtue, he argued, are not qualities which can be be- 
queathed nor inherited from a parent. "Why then should no- 
bility which is said to be the reward of merit be inherited, when 
merit itself is not? Had the creator of mankind intended that 
nobility should have been necessary in the administration of gov- 
ernment, he would doubtless have created a distinct species of 
men, remarkable for ability and virtue, and he would have made 
his hereditary nobles hereditarily wise and good men. "3*^ 

That liberty was greatly endangered by the use of titles was 
the opinion expressed in an article in the Gazette of the United 
States for April 20, 1793. Those who maintain that "sounds are 
substances" are warned to be on the watch for all advances 
which the enemies of Liberty may attempt to make along that 
line. "It is surprising that the title of Reverend, applied to the 
clergy, should have remained uncensured till lately. But the 
high sounding titles of the Grand Lodges of the Free Masons, 
with their Right Worshipful Grand Masters and their Most 
Worshipful Grand Secretaries must be abolished or Liberty will 
not live to see another New- Year's day." 

The writer of an anonymous pamphlet-^" in 1794 complained 
of the monarchical ideas of Hamilton and his followers and of the 
use made by them of their party organ, the Gazette of the United 
States, in the following words : "To render this monarchical 
etiquette the more pompous and to familiarize it to the citizens, 
a courtly gazette was instituted, which industriously proclaimed 
the ideal grandeur of the court and published the names and 
rank of all the most honorable personages, both male and fe- 
male, who graced it with their presence." "When Washington 
was commander-in-chief of the army," he went on, "it was his 
habit to set aside a particular hour for receiving visitors, when 
his officers and any other persons so desiring might consult with 
him. When he came to the presidential chair, he introduced 



■Ibid., June 10, 1791. 

' "A Citizen," A Review of the Revenue System. Letter XII. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 123 

the same custom and probably never would have offended the 
most scrupulous republican, if the monarchical order had not 
metamorphosed it into a courtly levee, and if the courtly gazette, 
faithful to its trust, had not proclaimed it to the world in the 
pompous stile of St. James or Versailles." The purpose of 
these monarchical tendencies, the pamphleteer continued, was to 
turn the attention of the people away from the activities of the 
Government. "The monarchical faction vainly thought that by 
apeing the courts of Europe, they would strike the people with 
awe and that, by the splendour of the court, the attention of the 
people would be diverted from the measures of the Administra- 
tion." 

The Democratic Society, of course held in abhorrence all 
titles or other insignia of courts. On January 9, 1794, it passed 
the following motion : "Resolved, that we differ in opinion 
from those who imagine that the rulers of a republic may con- 
ciliate the favor of monarchs and despotic courts by assuming 
courtly forms, etiquettes and manners ; that republics are held 
in detestation by despotic governments not on account of their 
manners but of their principles. "^^ 

(d) Election Methods and Political Campaigns 

Partisan feeling, however high it may have run at certain 
crises, did not save the country in the Federalist period from the 
besetting dif^culty of almost all democracies, the apathy of the 
electorate. And the newspapers of Philadelphia freely per- 
formed the function then as now of reminding Demos of his 
shortcomings. A correspondent of the Pennsylvania Gazette for 
January 7, 1789, notes that the severity of the weather had been 
advanced as the reason for the poor attendance at the recent 
town-meeting to choose representatives in Congress. But, says 
he, "the chilling frosts of winter are but trifling compared to the 
consequences which will result from choosing men to govern us 
who are unworthy of our trust and confidence." 

Another correspondent of the same journal laments that, 



^' Manuscript Minutes, pp. 37-38. 



124 Smith College Studies in History 

"according to the present statement of votes given in, it does not 
appear that more than half the citizens of this state have paid 
the proper attention to the darhng privilege of choosing their 
ov^n rulers." "Lethargy," he says, "is not becoming the spirit of 
a free and independent people," and he goes on to complain that 
in some of the counties anti-federal sheriffs have resorted to il- 
legal means to defeat the purposes of the people in the recent elec- 
tions. The returns for federal representatives from some of the 
counties, instead of being made in ten days, had been kept back 
for four weeks; and those for electors of a President and Vice- 
President had not yet been made made from all the counties on 
February 4, 1789. "Shall a few anti-federal sheriffs," he de- 
mands, "be suffered with impunity thus to trample on the laws 
and render the federal state of Pennsylvania the scofif of the 
Union ?"39 

Nine years later, we find a writer in Porcupine's Gasette^^ 
complaining of the same indifference on the part of the electors. 
"If," says he, "it were ever necessary for the friends of the fed- 
eral government, of order, security of property and personal 
safety to exercise their franchise and bring their influence to bear 
at the elections, it is now." The Quakers have been particularly 
blameworthy in this respect. Their religious scruples have been 
given as the reason ; "but what man is there whose conscience 
can forbid him to do good and to prevent evil, when it is in 
his power and when he can employ that power in a fair, honest 
and legal way. . . . William Penn, the venerable founder 
of this state and the ornament of their society, .... this 
pattern of Excellence, as he has ever been held, did not think it 
wrong to vote at elections ; on the contrary, he called on all free- 
holders to do so and that too, in times, not unlike the present as 
far as the affairs of a kingdom and a republic can approach to 
a resemblance. He who will not, to support the government, 
take the pains to put a word upon a piece of paper and carry 



Pennsylvania Gazette, February 11, 1789. 
' February 20, 1798. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 125 

it a mile, will talk to us in vain about his attachment to peace, 
order, morality and religion, all which depend on the stability of 
that government and on that alone." 

The first presidential conflict between the Federalists and the 
Republicans was the campaign of 1796. The party press was 
filled with arguments for and against the claims of Jefiferson and 
Adams. One of the strongest presentations of the case for 
Jefiferson came from the pen of "Cassius."'*^ Writing in the 
New World shortly before polling day, he tried to make the peo- 
ple realize the importance of the approaching election by remind- 
ing them of the great powers which the Constitution vested in 
the President and of the enormous influence which his office en- 
abled him to exert. That "Cassius" did not regard Washing- 
ton's administration as a success is shown by the following : 
"The history of the present administration proves that there is 
no measure, however odious to you or repugnant to your consti- 
tution, which the authority of a President cannot accomplish. 

. The history of the present administration proves that there 
is no man, however contemptible in your sight, whom a President 
cannot elevate to your highest offices and that there is no na- 
tion, however detestable to you, with whom a President cannot 
unite you in the closest alliance. When I call your attention to 
the alarming events of the present administration, it is not with 
a malignant desire to excite indignation against your venerable 
President. May his virtues ever be deeply impressed upon your 
grateful hearts. Let his errors be consigned to oblivion's darkest 
cave, never to return to light, except when stern duty requires 
that the patriot should hold them up as awful examples." 

Coming to the respective merits of the candidates themselves, 
"Cassius" was willing to acknowledge the services of Mr. Adams 
to his country during the Revolution, and to admit "that he 
had integrity of principle until his residence at the Court of St. 
James. There he was dazzled with the splendor of royalty ; 
there he drank at the polluted fountain of political corruption, 
there he prostrated himself at the shrine of Majesty." The 

*'New World, October 28, 1796. 



126 Smith College Studies in History 

writer hints that if it were not for the deep mystery enveloping 
the proceedings of the Senate, many specific charges of mis- 
conduct in the office of Vice-President might be brought against 
him. "But it is sufficient for you to know that he has supported 
every measure which the patriot condemns, that he favoured the 
introduction of pompous titles, that he strenuously labored to 
keep you in profound ignorance with respect to the proceedings 
of your own Senate ; that he negatived the law prohibiting all 
commercial intercourse with Britain, and that by this fatal nega- 
tive, he left no alternative but a negotiation which terminated 
in the most disgraceful Treaty which history records. But let 
us turn from the contemplation of this odious character to sur- 
vey Mr. Jefferson." 

"Cassius" then goes on to eulogize Jefferson, praising his 
firmness of purpose, his bravery, and his absolute fitness in 
every respect for the presidency. He says it is a fact admitted 
by every candid man, that America has only one enemy among 
the nations, only one country with whom we might engage in 
war and that is England. But those very people who oppose 
Jefferson on the ground that he would be incapable of leading 
this country in war, are the very ones who advocated the British 
Treaty and who professed absolute confidence in British faith. 
"This party," he says, "by expressing an apprehension of war, 
are shameful enough to stigmatize Britain as a perfidious nation, 
whilst their odious eulogium upon her justice and benevolence 
still resounds upon the patriot's disgusted ear." But if we were 
to engage in a war with England, would not Mr. Jefferson con- 
duct it with more firmness than Mr. Adams? "Consider the 
close connection that now exists between Mr. Adams and the 
British party ; consider how that connection is daily strengthened 
by congeniality of sentiment and exchange of benefits and an- 
swer the question." 

A series of articles published in the Nczv World over the sig- 
nature of "Federalist" were evidently designed to further Ham- 
ilton's scheme of defeating Adams and electing Pinckney. In 
a communication addressed to the presidential electors, "Fed- 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 127 

eralist" says that he wishes to correct the very erroneous impres- 
sion which has been spread that Mr. Adams has consistently co- 
operated with the government in the principal measures which 
have been enacted since the adoption of the constitution. "It is 
a well-known fact, however, that Mr. Adams has never been con- 
sidered or treated by the President as an executive officer. The 
office of Vice-President has been kept in a perfectly dormant 
state in an executive sense. Mr. Adams has not at all partici- 
pated or co-operated in the executive councils or business of the 
United States in the last seven years." The fact that he is 
strongly opposed to the financial system of this country, adopted 
by Congress, is also very important. He greatly disapproves of 
the funding and banking systems and considers them "matters 
that have and will produce extreme and extensive ills. . . . 
There is not a citizen of equal consideration in the United 
States whose sentiments upon the funds and the bank are more 
opposed to the opinions of every person who ever has been or 
now is an officer of the Treasury Department." These senti- 
ments, the author wishes it to be known, "proceed from no ma- 
lignity towards Mr. Adams but from a long-reflected and settled 
opinion that the great financial operations of this government 
were wise, necessary and inevitable."'*- 

During the latter part of Adams's administration, he became 
involved in a quarrel with Hamilton and the "Essex Junto," 
largely because of his courage in insisting upon a peaceful set- 
tlement of the troubles with France. Cobbett and the Fennos, rep- 
resenting the extreme Anglophile element, supported Hamilton. 
"Porcupine's Gazette and Fenno's Gazette," says Adams, "from 
the moment of the mission to France, aided, countenanced and 
encouraged by soi-disant Federalists in Boston, New York, and 
Philadelphia, have done more to shuffle the cards into the hands 
of the Jacobin leaders than all the acts of administration and all 
the policy of opposition from the commencement of the govern- 
ment. "^^ 



"^New World, November 30, 1796. 

"Letter, Adams to John Trumbull, September 10, 1800, Adams's 
Works, vol. IX, p. 83. 



128 Smith College Studies in History 

The outstanding feature of the presidential campaign of 
1800 was of course Hamilton's bitter pamphlet attacking Adams. 
It called forth a vigorous reply from Noah Webster, editor of 
the New York Minerva, in an open letter to Hamilton in which 
he pointed out that the salvation of the Federalist party in the 
coming election depended on the support given to Adams. "You 
boldly assail the conduct and character of Mr. Adams," he said, 
"and endeavor to prove his vanity, self-sufBciency, jealousy, rash- 
ness, and ungovernable temper unfit him for the station of Chief 
Magistrate. The instances adduced in proof are mostly of a pri- 
vate and trifling nature ; hardly worthy of being the subject of 
remark or refutation." 

Webster then went on to prove that Hamilton's policy and 
conduct had been the chief source of the present divisions among 
the Federalists, and that if they should result in the election of 
an Anti-Federalist to the presidency, the fault would be his. 
The party feud, which had first manifested itself in 1798, was 
due chiefly to two causes: (1) The proposal of an offensive and 
defensive treaty of alliance with England, a plan which was 
defeated ; and the writer admits that he must do Hamilton the 
justice to say that he was opposed to this policy. (2) A propo- 
sal for the raising of an army to be used against France. This 
measure was passed by Congress, and for it Hamilton was largely 
responsible. But the plan was never carried into execution, 
thanks to Adams's pursuit of a pacific policy. And it was this 
which had aroused the resentment of Hamilton against him. 
"What extreme indiscretion to undertake an opposition from 
which, in case of success, would inevitably result an irremediable 
division of the federal interest and in case of defeat, complete 
our overthrow and ruin. Will not federal men, as well as anti- 
federal, believe that your ambition, pride and overbearing tem- 
per have destined you to be the evil genius of this country?" 

As a further cause of gratitude to Mr. Adams, Webster 
urged that he was the father of the navy — a system of defense 
much cheaper, more eiTectual, and popular than Hamilton's pro- 
posed army plan. "Be assured. Sir, you mistake the temper of 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 129 

the intelligent and hardy freeman of the United States. Your 
military system, they will not bear — they are almost to a man 
determined, if possible, to have no treaties of alliance and no 
permanent military force beyond what the frontiers and gar- 
risons may require." 

Finally it was Webster's "opinion, formed on thirty years of 
public service, that Mr. Adams is a man of pure morals, of firm 
attachment to a republican government, of sound and inflexible 
integrity and patriotism, and by far the best statesman that the 
late revolution called into notice." In Hamilton's pretense of 
upholding the honor and interests of the United States by blam- 
ing the President for sending an embassy to France, the citizens 
of America would see only "the deep chagrin and disappoint- 
ment of a military character, whose views of preserving a perma- 
nent military force on foot have been defeated by an embassy 
which has removed the pretext for such an establishment."'*'* 



** "A Federalist," A Letter to General Hamilton Occasioned by his Let- 
ter to President Adams. Philadelphia, 1800. 



CONCLUSION 

From the foregoing study it is abundantly apparent that Hfe 
could hardly have been uninteresting for the citizen of old Phila- 
delphia in the Federalist period. Life for him unquestionably 
was lacking in many of the comforts of the twentieth century. 
The streets over which he was obliged to travel were many of 
them unpaved and badly lighted and at times well-nigh impas- 
sable. The sanitary conditions were such as to render life at 
best precarious. But then as now he had the satisfaction of de- 
nouncing the city authorities for their neglect and mismanage- 
ment. The news of the world did not come each morning fresh 
to his door with present day dispatch ; but newspapers he did 
have in abundance, and if their accounts of distant happenings 
were not quite up to date, they were at any rate well spiced with 
opinion. The pamphleteer must have been more in evidence than 
he is today ; and beyond all question our citizen was preached at 
on Sundays with more than modern violence. 

And as for the topics of the day which occupied his attention, 
they were both numerous and important. In 1789 and 1790 the 
question of the permanent location of the national capital was still 
undecided ; and in this the citizen of Philadelphia had a deep and 
personal interest. And if he could not prevail upon Congress to 
fix its lasting abode with him, he could at least denounce the 
claims of New York, and by prudent arguments perhaps gain 
for his city the coveted honor and advantage for at least a dec- 
ade. Hamilton's great measures for the reorganization of the 
national finances — the funding system, the assumption of state 
debts, the excise, and the bank — claimed his attention in 1790 
and 1791, that is, if he had any head for tough financial prob- 
lems; and if he found himself much puzzled over the merits of 
the issues, at least he found his fellow citizens, who understood 
them better or worse than he, or whose material interests were 
involved, very much aroused and divided. In 1792 Hamilton's 
Opinion on the Bank, which ascribed such far-reaching powers 
to the federal government under the cloak of the "general wel- 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 131 

fare" clause of the constitution, caused grave alarm and dissatis- 
faction to many of his fellow citizens, though the great debate 
between the federalists and the exponents of states rights was 
postponed for some years longer. Far greater was the stir cre- 
ated by the war between revolutionary France and the mon- 
archies of old Europe in 1793. Washington's proclamation of 
neutrality, while it seemed to cut this country loose from the bitter 
issues which were engrossing and perplexing Europe, by no 
means did so in reality. Issues which were convulsing the Old 
World could not but be re-echoed in the New ; and Americans 
inevitably took sides. Some Philadelphians led by "Peter Por- 
cupine" hailed the Neutrality Proclamation with satisfaction so 
far as it went, but would have preferred an alliance with Great 
Britain. But the sympathizers of France were more numerous, 
and our citizen heard high debates between the two factions. 
Indeed, the Jacobin Club which was carrying all before it in 
France furnished the model which was imitated in this country 
when the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania was founded in 
Philadelphia and began to establish affiliated clubs in the counties 
throughout the state. Our citizen, unless he was a great radical, 
and a member, probably heard but little of the Democratic So- 
ciety at the time of its foundation in 1793. But when the pent- 
up grievances of the agrarian west burst forth in the Whiskey 
Rebellion in 1794, and the President of the United States in a 
message to Congress cast the blame for that rising upon the radi- 
cal societies, the press at once was filled with denunciations of 
them, and our citizen must have been gravely troubled. The 
publication of the Jay Treaty and the debate in Congress to 
which it gave rise in 1794 and the early part of 1795, again 
brought forward serious issues of foreign policy. Truly these 
were stirring times. 

With the presidential election of 1796. Washington was re- 
tiring from public life; and our citizen found himself obliged to 
decide between rival candidates and rival policies, and to take 
sides in a great party contest, the first of its kind with which he 
had ever been confronted. In the following year the abrupt 



132 Smith College Studies in History 

dismissal of Monroe, the American Ambassador to France, led 
to a serious crisis in Franco-American relations, a crisis which 
was heightened in the sequel by the X Y Z Episode, and led to 
a virtual state of war between the two countries; and if our citi- 
zen was one who had leanings towards the French cause, he 
must have been much disturbed. The passage of the Alien and 
Sedition Acts in 1798 seemed to the proponents of states rights a 
most vexatious, dangerous, and unconstitutional exercise of ar- 
bitrary power by the federal government. Virginia and Ken- 
tucky promptly countered with resolutions which practically set 
the national government at defiance; and the whole question of 
nullification was thrown open. The very existence of the Union 
seemed to be placed in peril. The Philadelphia press was filled 
with the discussion. But fortunately the example of Kentucky 
and Virginia was not followed, and the Union remained secure. 
With the election of 1800, the hitherto dominant Federalists 
found themselves split into two factions by the bitter controversy 
between their leaders, Hamilton and Adams ; and their oppon- 
ents, the Republicans, were able to come into power. Our citi- 
zen must have found it even more difficult to cast his vote wisely 
on this occasion than he did in 1796. 

Add to all these major issues, the chronic discussion over 
the use of titles, which occupied the press from 1789 until the 
question was finally settled by Congress early in 1795, and the 
frequent carpings of the newspapers because of his failure to 
be more assiduous in his attendance at the polls on election day, 
and the fact that his life was frequently placed in jeopardy by 
reason of repeated outbreaks of epidemic yellow fever; and one 
must form a picture of the life of our citizen of Philadelphia, 
which if he was attentive to his private business, must have 
been lacking neither in interest nor in occupation. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

MANUSCRIPT 

Minutes of the Democratic Society, 1793-1794. An original manuscript 
preserved in the Manuscript Room of the Pennsylvania Historical 
Society Library. Hand made paper, 8x13 inches. 68 folios, but 
incomplete; the following are preserved: pp. 17-18, 21-22, 27-76, 85-88, 
95-150, 163-184. Written in various hands, and without signatures of 
secretaries. 

NEWSPAPERS* 

Aurora General Advertiser (daily). Continuation of The General Ad- 
vertiser. From August 30 to October 19, 1799, published at Bristol. 
Publishers: 1795 to September 9, 1798, Benjamin Franklin Bache ; 
November 1 to 13, 1798, Margaret H. Bache; November 14, 1798, 
"published foi the Heirs of Benjamin Franklin Bache"; March 8, 
1800, William Duane. P. H. S., November 8, 1794 to 1801; Ridg- 
way, 1794 to 1800. Suspended publication from September 10 to 
October 31, 1798. 

Carey's Daily Advertiser. Publishers : James Carey and John Markland. 
P. H. S., 1797, February 10 to September 8; Ridgway, 1797. 

Carey's United States Recorder. Established January, 1798. Publishers: 
James Carey. P. H. S., 1797 (incomplete) ; Ridgway, 1798. 

Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser. Continuation of Dunlap and 
Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser (q. v.) Publishers: 1796, 
David C. and Septimus Claypoole ; 1799, David C. Claypoole. P. H. 
S., January 1, 1796, to October 1, 1800; Ridgway, January 1, 1796, 
to October 1, 1800. Continued as Paulson's American Daily Adver- 
tiser, October 1, 1800. 

Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser. Continuation of the Pennsylvania 
Packet and Daily Advertiser. Publisher : John Dunlap. P. H. S., 
January 1, 1791, to December 9, 1793; Ridgway, January 1, 1791, to 
December 9, 1793. Suspended September 15 to December 1, 1793, on 
account of yellow fever. Continued December 9, as Dunlap and 
Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser. 

Dunlap and Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser. Continuation of 
Dunlap's American Dailv Advertiser. Publishers: John Dunlap and 
David C. Claypoole. P.H. S., December 9, 1793, to January 1, 1796; 
Ridgway, December 9, 1793, to January 1, 1796. Continued as Clay- 
poole's American Daily Advertiser, January 1, 1796. 

Finlay's American Naval and Commercial Register (semi-weekly). Es- 
tablished December, 1795. Publisher: Samuel Finlay. Ridgway, 
December, 1795, to December, 1797. Publication suspended in De- 
cember, 1797. 

Federal Gazette and the Philadelphia Evening Post (daily). Established 
October 1, 1788. Title varies: April 16, 1790, Federal Gazette and 
the Philadelphia Daily Advertiser. Publisher: Andrew Brown. P. 
H. S., 1789 (stray nos. March 19, September 8, November 16), Sep- 
tember 1, 1792, to December 31, 1793; Ridgway, 1790 to 1794. Con- 



* The best collection of Philadelphia newspapers of this period is to be found 
in the Pennsylvania Historical Society Library. There is also a valuable collection 
at the Ridgway Branch of the Philadelphia Library Company. The following ab- 
breviations are used: P. H. S. — Pennsylvania Historical Society; Ridgway — Ridg- 
way Branch of the Philadelphia Library Company. 



134 Smith College Studies in History 

tinued as the Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser, 
January, 1794. 

Freeman's Journal, or the North American Intelligencer (weekly). Es- 
tablished April 25, 1781. Publisher : Francis Bailey. P. H. S., 1789 
to 1791 (with gaps) ; Ridgway, 1790 to 1792. Publication suspended 
in 1792. 

Gales's Independent Gazetteer (semi-weekly). Continuation of The In- 
dependent Gazetteer. Publisher: Joseph Gales. P. H. S., September 
16, 1796, to December 30, 1796, January 3 to March 7, 1797 (most). 

Gazette of the United States (semi-weekly). Removed from New York 
October, 1790. Title varies: 1794, January 7, Gazette of the United 
States and Daily Evening Advertiser; 1795, Gazette of the United 
States; 1796, July 1, Gazette of the United States and Philadelphia 
Daily Advertiser; 1800, October 13, Gazette of the United States and 
Daily Advertiser. Publishers: 1790 to 1798, John Fenno ; 1798 to 
1800, John Ward Fenno; October 13, 1800, to 1802, C. P. Wayne. 
P. H. S., April 15, 1789, to 1801 (incomplete), April, 1790, to 94, and 
January to June, 1797, missing; Ridgway, 1790-1795 to 1796, stray 
number in 1798. Publication temporarily suspended September 18, 
1793. Continued as the United States Gazette in 1804. 

General Advertiser and Political, Commercial, Agricultural, and Literary 
Journal (daily). Established 1790. Title varies: 1791, The General 
Advertiser. Publisher: Benjamin Franklin Bache. P. H. S., Oc- 
tober 1, 1790, to November 8, 1794; Ridgway, 1790 to 1794. Dis- 
continued from September 26 to November 25, 1793, on account of 
yellow fever. Continued as the Aurora General Advertiser, No- 
vember 8, 1794. 

Independent Gazetteer or the Chronicle of Freedom (weekly). Established 
April 13, 1782. Issued as a semi-weekly from September 17 to De- 
cember 17, 1782, October 7, 1786, changed to daily. Title varies: 
1782, The Independent Gazetteer and Agricultural Repository; 1794, 
The Independent Gazetteer. Publishers: 1782, Eleazer Oswald; 1783, 
E. Oswald and D. Humphreys; June, 1784, E. Oswald. P. H. S., 
1789 (complete), February 8, 1794, to September 16, 1796, 1790 to 
93 (stray nos.) ; Ridgway, 1790 to 1796. Continued by Joseph Gales 
as Gales's Independent Gazetteer, September 16, 1796. 

The Mail; or Claypoole's Daily Advertiser. Established June, 1791. 
Publisher: David C. Claypoole. P. H. S., June 1, 1791, to December 
29, 1792. Merged with Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser in No- 
vember, 1793. 

Merchant's Daily Advertiser. P. H. S., January 6, 1797, to June 30, 1798; 
Ridgway, June 22 and June 29, 1798. 

National Gazette (semi-weekly). Established October 31, 1791. Pub- 
lishers : Childs and Swaine for Philip Freneau. Ridgway, Oc- 
tober 31, 1791, to October 26, 1793. Publication suspended October 
26, 1793. 

Ncue Philadelphische Correspondcnz. Publisher: Melchior Steiner. 
Continued as Philadelphische Correspondcnz. 

New World (daily). Established 1795. Title varies: September 19 and 
20, 1796, The New World or The Morning and Evening Gazette; 
October 26, 1796, The Nezv World. Publisher : Samuel Harrison 
Smith. Ridgway, 1796 to 1797. Publication suspended in 1797. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 135 

Pennsylvania Gazette (weekly). Established 1728. January to June, 
1778, published at Yorktown, Pennsylvania. Title varies : 1779, The 
Pennsylvania Gazette and Weekly Advertiser ; April 3, 1782, The 
Pennsylvania Gazette ;]\Ay 31, \7%2, Pennsylvania Gazette and Weekly 
Advertiser; September 11, 1782, Pennsvlvania Gazette. Publishers: 
1735 to 1748, B. Franklin; January 12, 1748, to 1766, B. Franklin and 
D. Hall; February 6, 1766, David Hall; May 8, 1766, David Hall 
and William Sellers. P. H. S., 1789 to 1790, 1794 to 1796 (nearly 
complete) ; Ridgway, 1790 to 1800. Became Saturday Evening Post, 
August 4, 1821. 

Pennsylvania Journal or the Weekly Advertiser. Established December, 
1742. Became a semi-weekly June 23, 1781. January 7, 1789, again 
published weekly. Publishers: 1743 to 1766, William Bradford; 
September 4, 1766, to 1779, William and Thomas Bradford; 1779 
to 1781, Thomas Bradford; May 2, 1781, to 1782, P. Hall and T. 
Bradford; June 12, 1782, T. Bradford. P. H. S., 1789 to 1793 
(some lacunae) ; Ridgway, 1790 to 1793. Continued as the True 
American, in 1797. 

Pennsylvania Mercury and Universal Advertiser (weekly). Established 
August 20, 1784.' 1788 changed to tri-weekly, 1790 to weekly. Pub- 
lisher : 1784 to 1788, Daniel Humphreys ; 1788 to 1790, David Hum- 
phreys ; 1790, Daniel Humphreys. P. H. S., 1789 to December 8, 
1791 (with lacunae and gaps) ; Ridgway, 1790. 

Pennsylvania Packet and the General Advertiser (weekly). Established 
October 28, 1771. For a time between September 16, 1777, and June 
30, 1778, published at Lancaster, Pa.; July 2, 1778, tri-weekly; April 
8, 1780, semi-weekly; June 12, 1781, tri-weekly; September 21, 1784, 
daily. Title varies : October 25, 1773, Dunlap's Pennsylvania Packet 
or the General Advertiser ; November 29, 1777, Pennsylvania Packet 
or the General Advertiser; September 21, 1784, Pennsylvania Packet 
and Daily Advertiser. Publishers: 1771 to 1780, John Dunlap; Oc- 
tober 17, 1780, to 1781, John Dunlap and David C. Claypoole; Jan- 
uary 2, 1781, to 1784, David C. Claypoole; September 21, 1784, John 
Dunlap and D. C. Claypoole. P. H. S., 1789 to 1790; Ridgway, 1790 
to 1791. Continued as Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser, Jan- 
uary 1, 1791. 

Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser (daily). Contin- 
uation of the Federal Gazette and Philadelphia Daily Advertiser. 
Title varies : June 20, 1800, Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Adver- 
tiser. Publisher: 1794 to 1799, Andrew Brown; July 1, 1799, An- 
drew Brown and Samuel Relf. P. H. S., 1794 to 1796, 1798 to 1800 
(with lacunae) ; Ridgway, 1794 to 1801. After 1801 was known as 
Relf's Gazette. 

Philadelphia Minerva (weekly). Established 1795. Publisher: William 
T. Palmer. P. H. S., February 6, 1796, to January 20, 1798. Pub- 
cation suspended July, 1798. 

Philadelphische Correspondcnz. Continuation of Neue Philadelphische 
Correspondenz. Publishers : Steiner and Kammerer. P. H. S., 
1789 to 1800 (many lacunae). Continued as Pennsylvanishe Corres- 
pondenz, 1798. 

Porcupine's Gazette (daily). Established March 4, 1797. Title varies: 
March 4 to April 22, 1797, Porcupine's Gazette and United States 



136 Smith College Studies in History 



Advertiser; April 24, 1797, Porcupine's Gazette. Publisher: Wil- 
liam Cobbett. P. H. S., March 8, 1797, to August 27, 1799; Ridgway, 
March 4, 1797, to September 6, 1799. Changed to a weekly and 
continued at Bustleton, Pa., September 6, 1799, on account of yel- 
low fever in Philadelphia. 

Paulson's American Daily Advertiser. Continuation of Claypoole's 
American Daily Advertiser. Publisher: Zachariah Poulson. P. H. 
H., October 1, 1800, to 1801; Ridgway, October 1, 1800, to 1801. 

True American and Commercial Advertiser (daily). Continuation of the 
Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser. Publisher: 1798, 
Thomas Bradford. P. H. S., July 2, 1798, to 1801 ; Ridgway, 1798, 
(stray numbers). 

Universal Gazette (weekly). Continuation of the Independent Gazetteer 
by J. Gales. Publisher : Samuel Harrison Smith. P. H. S., March 
20, 27, 1801, June 26 to August 21, 1800. Publication suspended from 
September 11 to November 6, 1800, when the paper was resumed 
at Washington, D. C, under the same title. 

PAMPHLETS 

"A Citizen of Philadelphia," An ^Essay on the Scat of the Federal Govern- 
ment and the Exclusive Jurisdiction of Congress over a Ten Miles 
District. Philadelphia, 1789. 

"A Farmer," Five Letters addressed to the Yeomanry of the United 
States, containing some Observations on the dangerous scheme of 
Governor Duer and Mr. Secretary Hamilton to establish National 
Manufactures. Philadelphia, 1792. 

"An American Farmer," Letters addressed to the Yeomanry of the United 
States, containing some Observations on the Funding and Banking 
Systems. Philadelphia, 1793. 

"Helvidius," Letters written in reply to "Pacificus" on the President's 
Proclamation of Neutrality. Philadelphia, 1793. 

"Pacificus," Letters, zvritten in justification of the President's Proclama- 
tion of Neutrality. Philadelphia, 1793. 

Principles, Articles and Regulations agreed upon by the members of the 
Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, May 30, 1793. Philadelphia, 
1793. 

"'A Citizen," A Review of the Revenue System adopted by the First Con- 
gress under the Federal Constitution. In Thirteen Letters to a 
Friend. Philadelphia, 1794. 

"Germanicus," Letters to the Citizens of the United States. Philadelphia, 
1794. 

A Definition of Parties or the Political Effects of the Paper System con- 
sidered. Philadelphia, 1794. 

An Enquiry into the Principles and Tendency of Certain Public Measures. 
Philadelphia, 1794. 

"Caius," Address to the President of the United States on Neutrality. 
Philadelphia, 1795. 

"Camillus," Letters V, VI, VII. VIII. Philadelphia, 1795. 

"Cato," Observations on Mr. Jay's Treaty, I and II. Philadelphia, 1795. 

Examination of the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between 
the United States and Great Britain. Philadelphia, 1795. 



Public Opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 137 

"Curtius," Vindication of the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation 
with Great Britain. XII numbers. Philadelphia, 1795. 

"Porcupine, Peter," A Little Plain English, addressed to the People of the 
United States on the Treaty Negotiations with his Britannic 
Majesty and on the conduct of the President relative thereto, in 
answer to Letters of Franklin. Philadelphia, 1795. 

The American Remembrancer, or an Impartial Collection of Essays. Re- 
solves, Speeches, etc., relative to the Trcatv with Great Britain. 
Philadelphia, 1795. 

Aristocracy; An Epic Poem. Philadelphia, 1795. 

Features of Mr. Jay's Treaty. To zvhich is annexed a View of the Com- 
merce of the United States as it stands at present and as it is fixed 
by Mr. Jay's Treaty. Philadelphia, 1795. 

Political Observations. 1795. 

A Rub from Snub, or a Cursory Analytical Epistle addressed to Peter 
Porcupine. Philadelphia, 1795. 

A Short History of the Nature and Consequences of Excise Laws includ- 
ing some account of the Recent Interruption to the Manufactories 
of Snuff and Refined Sugar. Philadelphia, 1795. 

Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between his Britannic Ma- 
jesty and the United States of America. To which is annexed a 
Copious Appendix. Philadelphia, 1795. 

"Porcupine, Peter," A New Year's Gift to the Democrats, or Observations 
on a Pamphlet entitled "A Vindication of Mr. Randolph's Resigna- 
tion." Philadelphia, 1796. 

Duane, William, Truth Will Out. The Foul Charges of the Tories 
against the Editor of the Aurora Repelled by Positive Proof and 
Plain Truth and the Base Calumniators put to Shame. Philadelphia, 
1798. 

A Report of the Extraordinary Transactions zvhich took place at Phila- 
delphia in February, 1799. In consequence of a Memorial from cer- 
tain Natives of Jreland to Congress, praying a Repeal of the Alien 
Bill. Philadelphia, 1799. 

"A Federalist," A Letter to General Hamilton occasioned by his letter to 
President Adams. Philadelphia, 1800. 

A Report of an action for a Libel brought by Dr. Benjamin Rush against 
William Cobbett, in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, December 
term, 1799, for certain defamatory publications in a newspaper en- 
titled Porcupine's Gazette. Philadelphia, 1800. 

COLLECTED SOURCES 

Adams, John, Works of. ed. C. F. Adams. 10 vols. Boston, 1856. 
Hamilton, Alexander, Works of, ed. H. C. Lodge. Federal Edition, 12 

vols. New York and London, 1904. 
Jefferson, Thomas, Writings of. ed. P. L. Ford. 10 vols. New York and 

London, 1895. 
Madison, James, Writings of, ed. Gaillard Hunt. 9 vols. New York and 

London, 1900. 
Messages and Papers of the Presidents, ed. J. D. Richardson. 10 vols. 

Washington, 1897. 
Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789-1845, 

ed. Richard Peters. Boston, 1861. 



138 Smith College Studies in History 

Rush, Benjamin, A Memorial containing Travels through Life or Sun- 
dry Incidents in the Life of, ed. L. A. Biddle. Philadelphia, 1905. 

Washington, George, Writings of, ed. W. C. Ford. 14 vols. New York 
and London, 1893. 

SECONDARY WORKS 

Appleton, Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. J. G. Wilson and John 
Fiske. 7 vols. New York, 1887. 

Austin, Mary S., Philip Freneau, the Poet of the Revolution ; a History 
of his Life and Times. New York, 1901. 

Bassett, J. S., The Federalist System. New York and London, 1906. 

Beard, C. A., An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the 
United States. New York, 1913. Economic Origins of Jcfferson- 
ian Democracy. New York, 1915. 

Bradford Genealogy, compiled by S. S. Purple, 1873. 

Clark, A. C, William Duane. "Read before the Columbia Historical So- 
ciety, February 13, 1905." 

Claypoole Genealogy, compiled by Rebecca L Graff. Philadelphia, 1893. 

Fish, C. R., American Diplomacy. New York, 1915. 

Forman, S. E., The Political Activities of Philip Freneau. Johns Hop- 
kins University Studies, vol. XX. Baltimore, 1902. 

Hazen, C. D., Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution. 
Baltimore, 1897. 

Hudson, Frederic, J ournalisni in the United States, 1690-1872. New 
York, 1873. 

Melville, L. T., Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England and 
America. 2 vols. London, New York, Toronto, 1913. 

McMaster, J. B., and Stone, F. D., Pennsylvania and the Federal Con- 
stitution, 1787-1788. Philadelphia, 1888. 

McMaster, J. B., Historv of the United States. 8 vols. New York, 
1883-1914. 

Scharf, J. T., and Westcott, Thompson, History of Philadelphia, 1609- 
1884. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1884. 

Thomas, Isaiah, History of Pri>iting in America. 2 vols. Albany, 1874. 



VITA 

I, Margaret Woodbury, was born in Columbus, Ohio, October 2, 1893. 
My father is Benjamin Woodbury, and my mother Margaret Evans 
Woodbury. Upon graduation from Central High School, Columbus, in 
1911, I entered Ohio State University, from which I received the de 
gree of Bachelor of Arts in 1915. In October, 1915, I became a graduate 
student at Bryn Mawr College. In 1915-16 and 1918-19 I was a scholar in 
History; in 1916-18 I held the Resident Fellowship in History. My work 
at Bryn Mawr College has been directed by Dr. William Roy Smith, Pro- 
fessor of History, Dr. Marion Parris Smith, Professor of Economics, 
and Dr. Howard Levi Gray, Professor of History. 

My Major work in Bryn Mawr College has been in American History, 
Mediaeval and Modern European History being my Associated Minor, 
and Economics my Independent Minor. My preliminary examinations 
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy were passed on January 31, 
1919, and my final examinations on May 31, 1919. 

For assistance in the preparation of this dissertation, I am deeply in- 
debted to Dr. William Roy Smith and Dr. Charles Wendell David, of 
Bryn Mawr College. I wish to express my gratitude for the unfailing 
courtesy shown me by the officials of the Library of the Pennsylvania 
Historical Society and of the Ridgway Branch of the Philadelphia Li- 
brary Company. 



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